UPPER POTTSGROVE — The township has lost yet another legal battle with activist and resident Matthew Murray.
On June 2, Montgomery County Judge Jeffrey Saltz dismissed a request for temporary injunction sought by the township to prevent Murray from filing any more Right to Know requests.
According to the papers filed on Jan. 8 and signed by Commissioners’ Chairman Trace Slinkerd, resident Matt Murray has filed 100 Right to Know requests with the township since 2022 in what the filing characterizes as “an apparent desire to hamper the township’s financial and professional resources.”
According to a statement posted on the township website “the township had sought the injunction in an effort to mitigate escalating legal expenses resulting from more than 100 Right-to-Know requests submitted by a single individual. To date, responding to these requests has consumed significant municipal resources and incurred over $55,000 in legal fees.”
“Despite this setback, the Township remains committed to seeking a permanent injunction through the court of common pleas. Officials emphasized their dual commitment to honoring transparency obligations under the law and safeguarding taxpayer resources from potential misuse,” the unsigned statement read.
Of course, how much taxpayer resources have been spent in legal fees paid to pursue this case remains unknown currently.
On Wednesday, Michelle Reddick, the township manager and township right-to-know officer, responded to a Mercury right-to-know request regarding those legal costs to say it would take the township 30 days to provide that information.
Murray has not faced this legal challenge alone. In March, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania joined the case in Murray’s defense and tried to warn the township that it would likely lose the case.
The ACLU and Murray’s attorney Kate Harper argued the township’s Right to Know motion was the equivalent of a “SLAPP suit,” which stands for “a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation,” a practice which was recently the subject of a new law adopted in 2024 which provides protections to those subject to “meaningless lawsuits” designed to drain their pockets with legal fees.
“Matt Murray is immune from lawsuits of this kind” under the Anti-SLAPP law’s “grant of immunity,” she wrote. Murray “asserts that the township’s current litigation, together with the defamation lawsuit, constitute actions that he is forced to ‘forced to defend against meritless claims arising from the exercise of the rights to protected public expression,’” Harper wrote.
“Judge Saltz held that the township had no right to bring a lawsuit against Mr. Murray seeking to prevent him from filing Right-to-Know Law requests on the township,” according to a statement issued by the ACLU of Pennsylvania the day after Saltz’s decision.
“This outcome is a victory not just for Mr. Murray, who must be commended for remaining steadfast in his commitment to open government in the face of litigation by the township intended to discourage the exercise of his rights, but for all Pennsylvanians who value governmental transparency. The ACLU of Pennsylvania stands ready to protect every Pennsylvanian’s rights under the Right-to-Know Law to inquire into their government’s activities.”
At the time the township filed the Right to Know complaint, Murray and resident Nathaniel Guest were suing the township over its intent to build a township complex on the former Smola Farm property, which had been purchased to be protected open space. Township Solicitor Eric Frey had argued Murray’s Right to Know Requests were a way of harassing the township in “an apparent desire to hamper the township’s financial and professional resources.”
Last October, Murray and Guest won the first decision in the Smola case when Saltz, the same judge hearing the Right to Know case, ruled the township could not build on the 36-acre Smola property. In February, Saltz ruled again on the township’s “motion to re-consider,” and reaffirmed his prior decision blocking building at Smola Farm.
Harper, who is a former state representative who helped write Pennsylvania’s right-to-know law, wrote in her defense of Murray that Pennsylvania’s Office of Open Records had already dealt with and rejected the township’s argument about the “burden” of Murray’s requests.
“The township has provided no evidence of any burden,” the open records office wrote in its decision last October. Because the township did not appeal that ruling, Harper wrote, it is “bound” by the decision and could not take the matter to another court.
She further argued the township’s complaint of a burden and effort to stop further requests was undertaken “solely to have its solicitor look for ways to deny requests that are proper under the Right to Know law.” She added that “the township has a history of using the courts to harass its citizens who have the courage to express opinions on subjects of public discourse.”
She then referred to the “defamation lawsuit” the township filed against Murray and herself in the wake of an opinion article published by The Mercury in April 2024, Harper had authored in regards to the Smola Farm matter. In it, she characterized letters Police Chief James Fischer sent to Murray and one other resident in January 2024 as being “letters warning people not to speak out at public meetings.”
The Mercury invited the commissioners to write a response, which they did in May 2024, refuting that characterization. In a response signed by Commissioners Chairman Trace Slinkerd, Don Read and Hank Llewellyn, they countered, “the letter did not — as Ms. Harper falsely claims — warn against speaking out in public meetings. Rather, the letter explicitly encouraged continued participation, and merely warned against continued violations of the reasonable rules of participation.”
“I am thrilled the judge felt it important that the right to ask questions of our elected officials is important,” Murray said when asked for a comment. “Not only for me, but everyone who lives in the United States.”
Source: Berkshire mont