Making a Request

The City has chosen to use the Standard Request Form promulgated by the Pennsylvania Open Records Office. This form may be downloaded from the website of the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records. A hard-copy form may also be obtained from the City's ORO at the address below.

All Right to Know requests for information ("requests") must be submitted to the Open Records Officer ("ORO") of the City of Pittsburgh:

The City reserves the right to deny access to records if the form set forth above is absent from the request. In completing the form above, only physical addresses are acceptable, not Post Office boxes. The City reserves the right to deny access to records if a requester's physical address is omitted.

There are four ways to request a public record from the City:

1. In person
2. By mail
3. By e-mail
4. By fax 

Requests may be verbal or written. However, if a verbal request is denied by the City, there is no right of appeal.

The Right to Know Law does not require the City to accept requests made by telephone, and the City will refuse to accept requests made by telephone. The Right to Know Law also does notrequire the City to accept anonymous requests, and the City will refuse to accept anonymous requests. For the purpose of this section, an e-mail request which does not contain a proper name or street address will be treated as an anonymous request.

In order to meet the requirements of the Right to Know Law, the request must:

1. Identify the records requested with sufficient specificity to enable the City to ascertain which records are being requested
2. Include the name of the requester
3. Include the address to which the City should direct its response

The request need not state the reason that the records are being requested.

The City has chosen to use the Standard Request Form promulgated by the Pennsylvania Open Records Office. This form may be downloaded from the City website here, or from the website of the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records. A hard-copy form may also be obtained from the City's ORO at the address above.

The City may deny "disruptive requests," which occur when a requester repeatedly requests the same record. However, the requester is not precluded from requesting a different record.