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| One of my flowering cacti. It is unrelated to this story. Yet, as I hope you will agree, it offers a momentarily pleasant diversion. (Bergeron Image) |
I’ve never understood why some municipalities and school
districts are so hard-nosed about providing information under the OPRA statute
of New Jersey. Without helpful
compliance to the Open Public Records Act, it becomes nearly impossible for
petitioners to get information in a timely fashion, if at all.
Still, some administrators and elected officials, often
acting in consort, either refuse to provide information as requested, stall, or
release it in an unacceptable manner.
But in New Jersey, such responses can come with steep penalties
attached.
The previous administration and elected officials of the
Borough of Raritan began to find this out the hard way about five years ago
when a request by the Courier News – part of the Gannett media chain –
requested payroll information in a specific electronic format, so that the data
could be crunched by a computer.
The Borough replied that the payroll data requested would be
made available through its vendor, Action Data Services, but that it could be
provided in a PDF format only.
Later the Borough advised Gannett that the information would be provided in the electronic format originally requested, but that there would be a fee of $1,100 to cover the costs incurred by Action Data Services, its provider.
Information supplied in a PDF format, although useful to
know in its entirety, cannot be sorted and analyzed on a computer unless the
format is changed into that of an electronic spreadsheet such as is available
with the popular Microsoft Excel program which allows for great flexibility and
rigorous analysis.
Gannett found the $1,100 fee excessive, and took the matter
to court. After arduous, expensive
years of litigation, the media company won a judgment of $596,000 to cover its
litigation costs which, according to Gannett, does not cover all of the legal
fees incurred to settle the matter.
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Minutes after being sworn into office mere days ago, Charles
McMullin, the newly elected mayor of Raritan Borough is reported to have said
that “the lawsuit never should have
happened” and that “it serves no
purpose for the people of Raritan.”
With the exception of Councilman James Foohey, the Borough
Council then voted to hire an outside
law firm to settle this matter for the purpose of getting it off the backs of
Raritan’s constituents.
What on earth were previous Raritan Borough officials
thinking?
Thanks for checking in and remember: take care of yourselves out there.
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