The New Jersey Open Public Records Act (OPRA) is a major factor in how citizens across the state, including the members of the media, learn how governmental decisions are made and how our tax dollars are spent.
Our knowledge of what's going on in Town Hall is what keeps government transparent in their decision making and taxpayer dollar spending.
A just published ruling from the New Jersey Appellate Division gives a major boost in supporting our civil rights to "know what's going on."
In January 2023, Alex Rosetti submitted an OPRA request to the Ramapo-Indian Hills Regional High School Board of Education seeking email logs from the personal computers of past and current Board members discussing Board business.
The basis of his request was "a newspaper article detailing the intricate, involved and expansive agenda the [Board] was able to vote upon without any significant discussion at its reorganization meeting." He thus reasoned "that communications regarding Board business are taking place outside the realm of the District[-] controlled email accounts."
When the Board denied the request, Rosetti filed a lawsuit in New Jersey Superior Court in Bergen County seeking to compel release.
The trial court denied Rosetti's request, instead agreeing with the Board that email logs from the Board members' personal non-Board-issued email accounts exceeded the purview of OPRA as they are not government records.
The court added that granting Rosetti's request would impose a substantial burden on the Board not authorized by OPRA because Board members would have to spend considerable time, resources, and effort to obtain such logs from their private servers. Given the Board members' technical limitations, the court determined that compliance would require them to "conduct a search for the responsive emails not within [the Board's] custody or control and manually compile and collate information to generate a log." The court found this task was not required by OPRA.
Lastly, the court rejected Rosetti's transparency concerns, deciding "[t]here is no valid concern that, by their inability to produce the private email logs, [Board members] are evading their obligation under OPRA."
In a 21 page published ruling, Appellate Division Judges Sumners, Susswein and Bergman just parted ways with the trial court.
"We... pronounce that OPRA may extend to records not within a public body's immediate possession if public officials made them.. Records are government records if they are made by government officials even when the records are maintained by third parties, not the government. Based on the record before us, we hold the email logs of the Board members' private servers sought by Rosetti are subject to OPRA because the emails discuss Board business and were made by the Board members.
"Concluding these email logs contain government records under OPRA prevents government officials from circumventing OPRA by using personal email accounts and sustains the legislative intent behind the statutory scheme. This decision may also discourage government officials from using their personal devices, email accounts, or cell phones (texts) to conduct government business to avoid public disclosure otherwise permitted by OPRA," the judges wrote.
As previously reported here on FAA News, earlier last year Democrat Governor Phil Murphy signed into law sweeping reforms to the OPRA that will take some information that’s currently public and shield it from view.
The new law permits a public agency to reject a records request if granting access "would substantially disrupt agency operations. "
However, this new law did not disturb today's published ruling.
"Based on the record before us, we conclude Rosetti's OPRA request is not unduly burdensome. Although a public agency may reject a records request if granting access "would substantially disrupt agency operations," the records custodian must also "attempt[] to reach a reasonable solution with the requestor that accommodates the interests of the requestor and the agency," the Appellate panel emphasized.
The winning attorney is Donald M. Doherty, Jr.
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1 comment:
Love it. Let's start requesting their text messages and private emails of our corrupt public officials who hide everything before meetings, then show up to their meetings with their outcome with no public discussion to be had.
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