October 8, 2008
By SETH AUGENSTEIN
SPARTA -- The township has joined the club of county municipalities whose open records policies are being questioned by local residents.
Jesse Wolosky, a town activist, filed a letter of complaint alleging a denial of access from Open Public Records Act requests involving several weeks of correspondence in a tug-of-war between he and Township Clerk Miriam Tower.
Wolosky had been seeking minutes from the council's executive sessions, and weekly memorandums from Township Manager Henry Underhill to the councilmen.
Wolosky's complaint accuses Tower of not producing the documents within the accepted seven- to 10-day timeframe, and of needlessly redacting large portions of the documents.
Walter Luers, Wolosky's attorney, said the clerk had not followed clearly defined guidelines in blotting out privileged information, which should legally only include litigation, personnel issues and sensitive topics that could compromise the public's interest.
"You're supposed to give a legal basis for each redaction," he said.
Luers also said the indefinite time frame for releasing some of the redacted documents was not within the scope of the law. For instance, the memorandums from 2007 were just ignored, he said.
"That's not how life works," Luers said.
Tower and Township Attorney Tom Ryan declined comment about the new complaint. However, both said Wolosky's complaint was the first of its kind filed against Sparta.
Wolosky, one of the lead petitioners who brought about a townwide referendum and recall petitions against a majority of the council this year, maintained he was patient and thorough in his requests to the clerk's office, and filed a complaint only after he believed his requests were being sidestepped.
"We need to change the system of secrecy," Wolosky said.
Dara Lownie, a senior case manager at the Government Records Council, said decisions from the council's four members take varying amounts of time to resolve, depending on legal complexity and the order in which they are filed.
According to the council's Web site, denial of access complaints across the Garden State are multiplying as citizens have become more familiar with the Open Public Records Act, passed in 2001. There were 220 such complaints in 2006, and 310 in 2007. Wolosky's complaint, filed Sept. 29, is number 219 this year.
John Paff, the chairman of the New Jersey Libertarian Party's Open Government Advocacy Project, said he filed a similar denial of access complaint with the council at roughly the same time. Paff is no stranger to government access issues, having filed complaints against municipalities across the state the last several years. However, he said such issues as over-redacting and taking longer than the legal deadline were part of a larger battle between activists and keepers of government records across New Jersey.
"It's a tug of war," Paff said.
