In its haste to hire a new solicitor and undo some of the policies of the previous Republican-led board, the Democratic majority board that took control of the Central Bucks School District (CBSD) in 2023 allegedly violated the Sunshine Act.
That’s the contention of a lawsuit filed by residents John Callaghan and Karen Vecchione.
During a deposition conducted by the plaintiff’s lawyer, J. Chadwick Schnee, former Central Bucks school board president Karen Smith revealed the Democratic members of the board used Signal to communicate. The app generally deletes messages in about a day and has been used by in the past by public officials hoping to skirt public records laws.
When Schnee questioned Smith under oath, she insisted the board members did not use Signal for district business, according to a transcript of the deposition obtained by DVJournal.
After Smith said Signal deletes messages, Schnee asked if she knew the “retention requirements for school districts?”
“I’m aware of this policy,” said Smith, who also said she had been the right-to-know officer at Middle Bucks Institute of Technology, a technical school.
“Are you aware it’s also a law?” asked Schnee. She said she was.
Asked why she would “communicate via Signal as opposed to using a district-issued email address or device,” Smith said, “I started using Signal during the campaign because—on the advice from a friend. They recommended it because it’s safer than texting. It’s harder to hack Signal. And our campaign was very contentious, and I was concerned that my phone could potentially be hacked.
“So, that’s why I started using Signal. It’s also user-friendly. It allows you to create groups that work better than texting. Sometimes, when you text, if you have different types of phones, it doesn’t work as well. So that’s why I originally began using Signal, and I’ve continued for similar reasons.
“Obviously, we don’t use Signal in a quorum. That would be illegal. We never do that. And we don’t conduct agency business on Signal. We might share some information on Signal. We might have back and forth about scheduling things. We might have casual conversations like our reactions to something that’s happened, which is allowed.”
Smith said it was “a group decision to use Signal.”
Asked if that decision was made at a public meeting, she said it was not.
“Those are not conversations that are subject to the right-to-know [law]. They’re not agency business,” Smith said.
After Smith said the Signal messages disappear in “about a day,” Schnee asked, “So, aren’t you evading transparency?”
“Again, they’re not agency business. We’re careful about what we use the tool for. We use our email in cases where we believe something should be part of the record,” Smith replied.
In a Perry Mason moment, Schnee showed Smith a Signal message from board Member Heather Reynolds saying, “I think we need to be super freaking careful here with respect to replacing [former solicitor] Jeff Garton.” The Signal message is from the February following Garton’s replacement.
Reynolds replied, “We really don’t have a defense as to why we moved so quickly to appoint David Conn as our solicitor.”
Republican board Member Jim Pepper and former GOP board members Debra Cannon and Lisa Lisa Sciscio, who resigned in February 2024, were not privy to the Signal messages.
The district spokesperson, Michael Petitti, did not respond to a request to comment.
However, Central Bucks School Board members are not the only ones using a secretive messaging app.
DVJournal previously learned that Pennsbury officials are using Google Chat, a service that also deletes messages in 24 hours, to discuss school district business.
Melissa Melewsky, the lawyer for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, said laws should be changed to address this issue.
“Training [for board members] on the importance of government transparency would also be helpful, but a change in the law would be best,” Melewsky said.
State Sen. Jarrett Coleman R-Lehigh/Bucks) is looking into this and plans to hold a hearing soon to find out why officials are using apps that auto-delete messages in apparent contradiction to the right-to-know law.
“It may already be a violation of state law,” he said. “We know they’re using it.” There have been other instances from Pittsburgh brought to his attention, he said. But if the current law does not cover the practice, Coleman plans to introduce a bill to ban it.
The right-to-know law is “a really important tool for the taxpayers to learn what’s going on in the government and these huge school districts,” said Coleman. Central Bucks is the third largest in the state.
*This article has been updated to remove a profanity originally attributed to board member Rick Haring. It was messaged by Heather Reynolds.
