Lancaster Township agreed Monday to pay in damages and receive training about the Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Law to settle a lawsuit filed by the Butler Eagle over access to records about agreements and correspondence with a former manager.

The township, represented by solicitor Neva Stotler, and the Eagle, represented by attorney Paula Knudsen Burke, of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, agreed to the settlement in Butler County Common Pleas Court.

President Judge S. Michael Yeager issued an order dismissing the civil complaint based on the settlement after the parties agreed that the information the township provided was adequate.

“We’ve agreed that the township will pay $6,500; $1,500 of that represents the maximum statutory penalty” under the Right-to-Know Law, Burke said.

Burke and Stotler will organize the training.

“That will help the township with Right-to-Know Law compliance in the future,” Burke said.

The dispute over the records began Oct. 8. 2020, when Alex Weidenhof, a staff writer in the Eagle’s office in Cranberry Township, submitted a Right-to-Know request seeking all agreements between township and former manager Benjamin Kramer regarding the end of his employment, and all correspondence between Kramer and township officials regarding his job as a real estate agent between Jan. 1, 2018, and Sept. 30, 2020. Kramer resigned Sept. 30, 2020.

On Oct, 13, 2020, the township granted access to a separation agreement that would be ratified at the township supervisors’ Oct. 20 meeting, but denied the request for correspondence, saying the request sought records of his work as a real estate agent and not records that document a transaction or activity of the township.

In response to an appeal the Eagle filed Oct. 13 with the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records (OOR), the office on Dec. 8, 2020, ordered the township to provide all the records within 30 days.

The township did not appeal the decision to Common Pleas Court or provide the records, according to the complaint Burke filed in March 2021. Instead, on Jan 7, 2021, the township provided an attestation saying it provided Weidenhof with the separation agreement and that it found only one email involving Kramer’s work as a real estate agent, but it is not a public record because it does not document a transaction or activity of the township.

“Requester has a clear legal right to the documents and the township has a mandatory statutory obligation to produce them as the OOR issued a final determination and there has been no appeal filed,” Burke said in the complaint.

The separation agreement shed a little light on Kramer's departure, but doesn’t provide a clear reason.

“The employer and employee have made every reasonable effort to maintain the employer/employee relationship and the relationship is irretrievably compromised and no real and/or substantial pathway exists in maintaining the employer/employee relationship,” the agreement states in part.

It further states that Kramer was “terminated without cause.” The township paid him a severance of more than $18,000, with health benefits continuing through the end of 2020.

Kramer is employed as a real estate agent.

In the dismissal, Yeager ordered the township to pay the damages, which includes a civil penalty, to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press by May 11. In addition, he ordered township supervisors and employees to receive training about the Right-to-Know Law and agencies’ obligations under the law from an outside organization by Oct. 11.

“A court may impose a civil penalty of not more than $1,500 if an agency denied access to a public record in bad faith,” according to the Right-to-Know Law.

Stotler said the township is not admitting liability or that it failed to comply with the law.

“In an effort to settle the case, I did a counsel review of the records that had been requested,” Stotler said.

Stotler said she believes the information provided by the township is sufficient as an explanation "to the newspaper."

Burke is an attorney with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press's Local Legal Initiative, which provides legal services to local news organizations.