Sparta disputes ruling to pay attorney fees

August 15, 2012

By JESSICA MASULLI REYES

SPARTA -- A four-year battle between a Sparta resident and the township over public records will continue into next year regarding who will pay $12,000 in disputed attorney fees.

In 2008, resident Jesse Wolosky filed two complaints with the state's Government Records Council disputing redactions in executive session minutes and the cost of audio recordings.

Sparta is appealing the decision that was in Wolosky's favor, and the matter will move to an Appellate Court hearing in the next few months.

"Sparta appealed because we felt that the decision of the administrative law judge was incorrect in both cases," said attorney Richard Stein, of Laddey Clark & Ryan.

The initial Open Public Records Act requests were made by Wolosky in April and August of 2008. In the first one, he requested audio recordings of meeting on CDs in WAV format. He was told that the format would have to be FTR Gold or he would have to pay $67 per CD for WAV format.

The 11 CDs and other fees would have cost a total of $673.85, but the township later lowered the fee to $191.

Wolosky argued that he had received copies in WAV format for $1 on previous OPRA requests and that FTR Gold would require him to have to download a program to listen to the recordings.

However, Stein said this was not the case, since Sparta did not have WAV format readily available.

"We feel that in that situation it should be the person asking for the conversion, and not the taxpayers, who bear the cost," Stein said.

Wolosky filed a complaint in December 2008 with the Government Records Council, the group that responds to complaints about public records. The council initially ruled in favor of Sparta, but the council later reconsidered the matter with further evidence and ruled in favor of Wolosky in August 2010.

Wolosky then received the CDs in WAV format for a total of $2.45.

Wolosky's attorney, Walter Luers, said he took on the case because the audio recordings were too expensive.

"With respect to the recordings, I was always pretty confident that the amounts that the township clerk quoted were very, very high," Luers said.

The second complaint was filed in October 2008 after Wolosky requested executive session minutes and Friday memo, which is a brief document provided to the Township Council every week. The minutes and memo were redacted in several places.

"We had redactions to the Friday memorandums and they seemed pretty broad at the time so we asked the Government Records Council to review them and usually with those reviews you will get something un-redacted," Luers said.

The Government Records Council voted in favor of Wolosky and some of the redactions had to be removed. Stein said that even though the council voted in favor of Wolosky, only 68 of the 71 redactions had to be released, meaning that the majority of the redactions were upheld.

"That left three redactions ... that had to be released to Mr. Wolosky," Stein said.

Both of the cases then went to the Office of Administrative Law, where it was decided that Luers would receive nearly $12,000 in attorney fees from Sparta. But, Sparta has filed an appeal with the Appellate Court regarding both cases.

Although Wolosky has already received the reduced-price CDs and un-redacted documents, both sides are now fighting over the fees. OPRA law states that the prevailing party's attorney should receive reasonable fees from the losing party, especially since these cases are taken on by attorneys without pay from their client.

"The only thing Sparta would get would be that we wouldn't have to pay the attorney fee to Mr. Wolosky's attorney," Stein said about Sparta winning.

Stein added that the administrative law judge slightly cut Luers' fees, and Luers is now appealing that decision.

"If Sparta didn't appeal it, my lawyer would have settled for what the Government Records Council ruled," Wolosky said.

If Wolosky wins, then Sparta may have to pay a higher attorney fee, since Luers is continuing to fight the case. Luers said his appeals usually range anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 on top of any prior reasonable attorney fees, but he didn't know the exact bill on this case.

Wolosky said these appeals are not actually beneficial to Sparta.

"What is the benefit to the taxpayers to push this to the Appellate Court?" Wolosky asked. "Do they want to prove me wrong after I won in two courts?"

He said this continues to incur more attorney fees on both sides.

"They are creating a bigger pay day for (my attorney), and now they are creating a pay day for themselves," Wolosky said. "The township attorneys are milking the town."

The two cases will go to trial in the coming months, but a date has not yet been set.

Sparta school board stops listing names of records requesters

December 20, 2011

By JESSICAMASULLI REYES

SPARTA -- After receiving criticism last month, the Board of Education has decided to no longer print on the agenda names of people who made document requests through the Open Public Records Act (OPRA).

In November, the time spent and cost of each OPRA request were listed next to each name. Some of the people on the list and an OPRA activist, Jesse Wolosky ,criticized the board and Superintendent Thomas Morton for trying to intimidate people from making these requests.

"There was quite a reaction to the board's request to see the OPRA listings," Morton said at Monday's meeting. "It is important to note there was no intent to intimidate or embarrass anyone."

Morton recommended to the board that it modify the list to remove individual names. The board agreed, and Morton announced that since Sept. 29 there have been 16 OPRA requests, totaling 12 hours and five minutes of staff time, and associated legal bills for October and November of $1,791.25.

Morton said the list of names is public information and is accessible to anyone who requests it. He that he found it "curious" that the people who were upset about the list were the people who have previously made an OPRA request of that very list.

Board member Frank Favichia clarified that the entire board did not ask for the list to be printed on the agenda, but instead board President Keith Smith did so.

Also, at Monday's meeting, the board discussed how to handle three recent opinion pieces in local newspapers that they said were inaccurate. The board criticized the New Jersey Herald for calling the pursuit of new athletic facilities an "end-around play" in an editorial in Monday's
newspaper.

"We have contacted the state several times, and we continue to work with the state on this project," Smith said. "The accuracy of the statement is not correct."

Morton criticized the New Jersey Herald editor and questioned the state's decision to not allow Sparta to build a new multi-purpose turf field and synthetic track with unspent referendum funds from the high school project prior to actually seeing an application from Sparta.

The board decided not to respond to the editorial since according to board member Kevin Pollison, "The power of the pen is that they can write an editorial."

The board voted 6 to 3 to draft its own letter to the editor to respond to a letter to the editor from Assemblywoman Alison Littell McHose, Assemblyman Gary Chiusano and Senator Steve Oroho that was in the Sparta Independent and New Jersey Herald. The letter stated that the district used "loopholes in the law" to circumvent a cap on salaries of school administrators.

"It is inaccurate," Smith said. "The timing is inaccurate.

The dollar amounts are inaccurate." Board Vice President Dorothy LaBeau said that there is a
difference between a letter to the editor from a citizen and one from politicians, and thus the letter needed to be addressed. But, Favichia asked the board to build relations with the public rather than rehashing problems.

The board also questioned whether or not to respond to an inaccuracy they believe was in a letter to the editor by Wolosky in the New Jersey Herald, but it decided not to respond to citizen opinions.

Sparta activist against board open records action

Dec 01, 2011

By JESSICA MASULLI REYES

SPARTA — A resident is threatening a lawsuit if the Board of Education does not stop publishing a list of people who made document requests through the Open Public Records Act (OPRA).

Jesse Wolosky, an OPRA activist from Sparta, believes that by publishing the list of names in the November agenda, the board and superintendent are trying to intimidate political opponents and critics.

"It is trying to put guilt on the requestor," Wolosky said. "Remove the list and stop doing it, and then the issue is dead."

Superintendent Thomas Morton said the intention is not to intimidate people, but instead to provide the board and public with information about the cost and time involved with fulfilling OPRA requests.

"There has been a discussion every month about what the cost and time of OPRA is," Morton said. "So let's just put it down as accurately as we can."

Morton said at Monday night's board meeting that since the business administrator resigned in September, he has been handling the OPRA requests and has wanted to let the public know the "man hours" and cost behind these requests.

On November's meeting agenda under unfinished business, four people were listed as having made five OPRA requests from Sept. 30 to Oct. 24. The time spent and cost of the OPRA request were listed next to each name, but under cost it only said "legal fees" since it takes one month for the final bill to be sent to the district.

Morton said that despite Wolosky's warning of litigation, he still plans to print the list of names, time spent and cost on December's meeting agenda. He also expects to be able to put a dollar value instead of writing "legal fees."

"It is public information and there has been a lot of discussion about it," Morton said.

Tom Cafferty, an attorney for the New Jersey Press Association, said the list of names is public record and can be printed in the agenda or obtained through an OPRA request, but the disagreement comes down to the intent in publishing the names.

Wolosky said that regardless of intent this is a violation of civil rights, and the board could just provide time spent and cost without listing names. "If you (read) the First Amendment and the 14th Amendment, you can see that they are violating civil rights," Wolosky said.

"I think it is to intimidate and it is political. I see this a lot in municipalities that it is the political forces that we have in our country that are fighting over power on a local level."

But Morton disagreed and said that some people in Sparta have been submitting OPRA requests for the names of those who filed OPRA requests. By putting the information in the agenda, Morton is providing that information without the normal steps in filing an OPRA request.
Wolosky sees this differently.

"If they wanted to be more public about their information, why not list what this person is requesting and the response," Wolosky said.

Cafferty agreed, and said that if the board wanted to publish the list of names, it should also be more transparent with other public records.

"We are all for transparency, but transparency for everything," Cafferty said. "Let's make everything transparent. This is part of your job and if you are going to do this, let's record everything that is part of your job. Why selectively single out OPRA?"

Wolosky said that more public information should be printed on the district's website to cut back on the number of OPRA requests and to remain transparent.

"The big picture is (that they should) put out the information of the Board of Education," Wolosky said. "Why not have a list of every employee and their salary? I am talking about putting out Board of Education business. The requestor's business is the requestor's business."

Paul Johnson, a former board member who was listed as filing an OPRA request on Sept. 30, said he did not agree with the practice of listing the names. "I believe in my heart it is an intimidation factor," Johnson said.

"They don't want people to know what is going on until they have prepared themselves to present it to the world or not. This is an attempt to intimidate people to not request information that they have a right to see."

Morton disagreed at Monday night's board meeting though and said that it is a public service to show taxpayers how much the requests are costing them.

Johnson said that the requests he filed in September were for a test scores presentation that was given by Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum Kathy Monks and for an exit package contract for former Business Administrator Warren Ceurvels. Johnson requested the exit package because when he asked if there was a legal gag order placed on Ceurvels at the board meeting, board President Keith Smith recommended that Johnson submit an OPRA request.
On the list, it said that Johnson's two requests incurred legal fees and took 50 minutes.
"That would take 10 minutes to do," Johnson said. "Why did they need to associate legal costs with that? It is a contractual agreement. They know that it is a public record."

Melva Cummings, who was also on the OPRA request list twice, said at Monday's board meeting that her requests should not have taken six hours and 15 minutes to fulfill and should not be on the agenda.

"We are doing what is perfectly legal and conscientious," Cummings said. "This action has now crossed the line."

Smith said that Cummings did not need to direct her frustration at Morton since listing the OPRA requests was actually something that Smith himself asked Morton to start doing.

Cafferty said that OPRA requests do not normally incur legal fees. "Most requests are routine," he said. "Many of these requests they've seen several times. This is part of (the) job duty."

Wolosky said that having five OPRA requests over a five-week period is not excessive. "Five OPRA (requests) that they received in the last five weeks is not a lot of work," Wolosky said. "A lot of times it is finding a document and sending it off. It shouldn't be a legal fee because you are not asking for executive session that needs to be redacted."

Wolosky said that if the board doesn't change this newly adopted practice, he will file an OPRA request, get his name on the list and then file a lawsuit. He feels confident that he can win since another municipality stopped the same practice after he persuaded them of the legality.

"Once a local government is directed to the law they are violating, if they are not just stubborn or arrogant, they might listen," Wolosky said. "I just hope if Morton or the board plan on being stubborn or arrogant that they get a lawyer who knows federal law."

Sparta man says he will bring petition case to Legislature

March 10, 2011

BY JEFF SISTRUNK

A Sparta resident said he plans to bring the issues central to his recently dismissed lawsuit against Sparta Township to a member of the state Legislature.

On Tuesday, Superior Court Judge Theodore Bozonelis dismissed a lawsuit brought against Sparta by Jesse Wolosky, who claimed that Sparta’s governing council violated petition laws on several occasions last year through the manner in which it handled the restructuring of the township’s Department of Parks and Recreation.

The Sparta Township Council passed an ordinance last year restructuring the department. That ordinance had some language similar to that found in an ordinance the council repealed earlier in 2010 in light of a successful petition drive by township residents.

While Bozonelis agreed that the action that Sparta’s council took to pass the ordinance was valid, he also agreed with some of Wolosky’s points on the issue.

According to court documents, during oral arguments, “Bozonelis agreed with (Wolosky’s) position that the governing body of a municipal agency should not be allowed to re-introduce an ordinance that was repealed or voted down in response to a referendum petition.”

However, Bozonelis held that he was limited by the vague language of the Faulkner Act — the legislation that governs municipalities such as Sparta — and that the situation should be corrected by the Legislature, not the courts.

While Wolosky can take his case to appellate court, he said he won’t pursue that option because he expects that judges at the appellate level would give him the same answer.

Instead, Wolosky said he plans to bring his concerns to a member of the state Legislature, possibly a member from Sussex County. If Sussex County legislators “are not interested in correcting the statute” in question, he said he will approach Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen County), with whom he said he’s had “past communication” on Open Public Records Act issues.

“I feel the law needs to be corrected for all Faulkner Act municipalities in New Jersey before governing bodies realize this loophole in the statute and silence the will of the people when they make the effort and take the time to submit a petition,” Wolosky said.

Wolosky said the “loophole” he refers to is a governing body’s legal ability to re-introduce an ordinance that’s identical or similar to an ordinance that has been repealed.

Activist wins open records dispute

February 9, 2011

By TOM HOWELL JR.

The Government Records Council has put the final stamp on a case filed by a Sparta activist who successfully argued a Green Township custodian of records failed to comply with his open records request in late 2008.

Jesse Wolosky said he did not receive executive session minutes from the township’s governing body and check registry data from Jan. 1, 2003 to Dec. 2, 2008, by his requested method of delivery or within the seven days allotted by the Open Public Records Act.

He filed a complaint with the GRC, which reviews and mediates OPRA-related issues, on Jan. 5, 2009.

“In a month, she didn’t give me the records,” Wolosky said.

According to the GRC, the Green custodian of records also improperly charged $25 for a CD-ROM of the requested check registry data.

“The days of the 25-dollar CDs are long gone,” said Walter Luers, an Oxford attorney who served as co-counsel for Wolosky on the case.

The records council said the township records custodian did ultimately provide the executive session minutes through a requested method of delivery — by fax — and complied with the intent of the GRC’s Dec. 22, 2009, interim order by providing the check registries in PDF format via e-mail.

However, the council added, the custodian’s legal certification to the GRC was not completed in a timely manner, and the GRC found a direct link between Wolosky’s filing of a complaint and the eventual desired result.

“The Custodian did not provide the Complainant access to the requested records in the medium requested or by the preferred method of delivery until after the filing of this Denial of Access complaint,” the GRC said in its final decision papers.

Therefore, the GRC said, Wolosky is the prevailing party and his attorneys are entitled to appropriate fees. Both parties reached a settlement, under the auspices of the Office of Administrative Law, to dispose of the matter.

Newton attorney William Hinkes, who represented Green Township, confirmed the settlement but had no further comment on the terms.

Sparta attorney John McMeen, who served as lead counsel for Wolosky alongside Luers, said the pair of attorneys received $2,300 to be split in accordance with their billable hours.

Records law violations claimed in Harding Township

February 8, 2011

By MIKE CONDON, Staff Writer Recorder Community Newspapers Observer-Tribune

HARDING TWP. – Don’t tell Sparta resident Jesse Wolosky that he doesn’t know the intricate ins and outs of the state Open Public Records Act (OPRA).

An investor, Wolosky classified himself Friday in a lengthy interview as an “activist and an advocate.”

And, last summer, he set his sites on making sure Harding Township’s custodian of public records- Township Administrator Gail McKane- was in compliance with all OPRA regulations.

It turns out, he said, that she was not.

And, as a result, Wolosky has filed a complaint with the Government Records Council (GRC), which oversees OPRA-related complaints.

Last month, the Harding Township Committee fired back, asking legislators to amend the OPRA legislation to give municipalities more time to respond to requests that may be missing certain elements before a complaint could be filed.

They said Wolosky was trying to make money via attorney fees, which the township may have to pay if it is found to be not in compliance. They said OPRA requests such as his are frivolous, and costly.

Wolosky said, however, that a very recent amendment to the OPRA law is headed in exactly the opposite direction; it holds custodians of public records more accountable.
Previously, for example, he said the law said custodians could be fined if they “knowingly and willfully” withheld public information.

As of Jan. 31, the law states the clerk could be held responsible if he/she “arbitrarily” withheld information.

“Before, you would have needed nothing less than a confession from the custodian of public information that they withheld information. Now, the GRC will have an easier time ruling against the custodian,” he said.

An OPRA advocate, Wolosky said that, contrary to claims made by Harding Township officials, he is not trying to specifically target Harding, nor is he trying to “trap” them.

Instead, he said, he has, for the past three or four years, randomly solicited information from towns and school boards, in every county, around the state.

“I challenge them to make sure they are in compliance with OPRA. I am randomly checking for transparency. I go county to county and I submit OPRA requests, just to make sure that they know the law and that they are following the law,” he said.

This past summer, he targeted towns and school boards in Morris County. And that’s where he hit a snag in Harding Township.

For starters, he said, Harding was not complying with the law which requires executive session minutes to be approved by the governing body within 30 days for release to the public.

He did not, however, file a complaint over that.

“The whole idea behind this is to get these government agencies to comply with the law. Nobody is watching them. The GRC and the Superior Court only gets involved if there is a complaint filed,” he said.

Another example he said he finds frequently, although not necessarily in Harding, is that towns and school boards overcharge for the CD or cassette tape of a public meeting.

“They are supposed to charge only the cost of the CD or the tape, which is about 35 cents to 65 cents. Some towns I have found are charging $195 for a CD. That is against the law,” he said.

“In my very first OPRA request in Harding, they were in violation of the Open Public Meetings Act, because they hadn’t released their executive session minutes. I didn’t file a case over that,” he said.

“They were also unwilling to e-mail or fax requests, which the law also requires.

“When I asked her (McKane) for the executive session minutes, they had not been approved yet. If I wanted to trap them, as they claim, I could have filed a Superior Court action then,” he said.

“If they work with me, I will give them the time they ask for to comply,” he said.

After disagreeing with a municipal issue in Sparta, he said he “started to look around” at other towns.

“I found that it’s all over, everywhere. They are pushing residents around, and it wasn’t just my town and my board of education,” he said.

“The more I looked into it, the more I found that these towns and school boards can’t even follow their own laws. Government agencies are violating the law, and when I find that, I take them to court, and I have won in Superior Court many times,” he said.

“Many times, the judge agrees with me. They come back and say I’m wasting taxpayer money, and I’m taking money away from the children, but my response is simple, follow the law” he said.

McKane also has said Wolosky requested her home address, and said that was the one piece of information that she withheld temporarily, prompting his complaint.

Wolosky said, however, that it was much more than that.

“The law says you can redact certain items on public documents, but it has to be clearly marked as a redaction, with a black marker. She (McKane) simply used White Out, with no reason given, and you can’t do that,” he said.

“She redacted her address from a financial disclosure statement. If you are a public employee, your address is public, as is your salary and all of your employment information.

“She would not disclose her net pay. I asked her for a pay stub, and she whited out her net pay,” he said.

“She makes $133,000 by the way,” he said. “But, that was redacted without giving a reason. You are a public employee, but you don’t want to show me how much you make?”

He also took exception to Harding Township Attorney Laura Lande’s claim that he had to wait seven days before filing a non-compliance complaint.

“I could have filed a complaint on the second day, but I didn’t do that,” he said.

McKane was on vacation and was not available for comment on Wolosky’s comments.

Mayor Marshall Bartlett said Assemblyman Jon Bramnick, R-Morris, has introduced legislation that will permit a municipality another seven days to respond, after it is made aware that a submission of information was deficient.

“We’ve also asked them to look into having it off limits to request a home address of an administrator,” Bartlett said.

“I have never met Mr. Wolosky. I have never spoken to him, but I do know that at the end of the seventh day, he didn’t come back and tell us we were missing something. He filed a complaint with the Government Records Council,” he said.

“And there is no good reason, that I have heard, that he needs any of this information. Towns are extremely short of money and manpower right now, and I certainly think Mr. Wolosky should take that into consideration,” he said.

“Harding Township wants to comply with OPRA, and we did furnish Mr. Wolosky with a great deal of information, and only a few small points were defective,” Bartlett said.

Legislature to consider changing public records process

January 28, 2011

By MIKE CONDON, Staff Writer Observer-Tribune

HARDING TWP. – If there are, indeed, changes to the state’s Open Public Records Act (OPRA) legislation designed to stem abuses, municipal clerks around the state might just have Harding Township to thank.

When the Township Committee met on Wednesday, Jan. 19, Mayor Marshall Bartlett said a complaint forwarded to Assemblyman Jon Bramnick R-Morris, seems to be getting some traction.

“Mr. Bramnick has indicated that he will submit legislation which would give a municipality seven days to respond if we are told that we inadvertently failed to give information as part of an OPRA request,” Bartlett said.

That seven days would be required, should the OPRA legislation be amended, before a requestor could file a complaint, alleging that the municipality and, more specifically, the township clerk, failed to comply.

What occurred in Harding, Bartlett explained, was that a voluminous request from a Sparta resident was forwarded to Township Administrator Gail McKane. Most of the information was provided with the allotted seven day period, but the township hesitated on one item; McKane’s home address.

Bartlett said that the second the seven day period expired, the individual, Jesse Wolosky, filed a complaint with the Government Records Council.

“This legislation would require that he would have to come back to us first, and ask for the information again, before filing the complaint,” Bartlett said.

The end result of such a complaint being filed, he said, is that the township and McKane personally could be fined.

Township Attorney Laura Lande said the township- or any municipality- has seven days to comply once the request is filed.

Lande said seven days is “reasonable,” and said the state legislature should be amenable to that. “If we asked for 30 days, they wouldn’t go along with that,” she said.

Committeeman Ned Ward said, however, that this potential legislation amendment does not go far enough.

“These people (like Wolosky) are gaming the system,” he said.

“This will give us more time, but they are still gaming the system. They should have to show that what they are doing (via the request for information) is in the public good,” he said.

Lande said, however, that that flies in the face of why the OPRA law was enacted initially.

“I doubt we would get very far with that argument. Most of the OPRA requests are legit and reasonable. Most people who request something are not playing games. And this law is designed to protect those people,” she said.

The first seven days, Lande said, is to acknowledge the request, and begin to fill it.
“We have proposed to the Legislature that if a substantial demand is made, and something is left out, we have a little time to correct that. We left one thing out, and by the seventh day, he (Wolosky) filed a complaint at the close of business on the seventh day,” she said.

“We are asking that before a request can be deemed as denied, you have to come back to the custodian of those records and they will have another seven days to comply before you can file a complaint,” she said.

Bartlett agreed.

“Jesse Wolosky was just trying to trap us,” he said.

He also said he will ask Bramnick if items such as a township administrator’s home address can be exempted from the OPRA law.

McKane said that more than 40 hours in manpower went into filling the requests, and most of the information was provided within five days; not the seven days permitted.
“This (her home address) was the one thing he got me on. We looked at it, and did not think it was public information. Obviously, I was wrong,” she said.

“And as a result, we may have to pay his attorney fees, and I can be fined personally,” she said.

Lande agreed with McKane.

“In this case, we gave him most of the requested information within five days. He knew this one little thing was missing, and he waited until time had expired, and then filed a complaint,” she said.

Bartlett also questioned Wolosky’s motive.

“He had no business asking for all of this, but that doesn’t matter,” he said.

“But, if we can get a change in the law, that will be great. To get legislation changed in New Jersey is a triumph. So, we’ll shoot for this and not ask for too much,” he said.

Sparta sued over council's response to petition drive

January 13, 2011

BY JEFF SISTRUNK

SPARTA -- A Sparta resident has filed a lawsuit against the township, claiming that it violated petition laws on several occasions last year.

Jesse Wolosky, who has led several petition drives in Sparta and Mount Olive and recently won a lawsuit against the Sparta Board of Education, filed the suit in response to the manner in which the Sparta Township Council handled the restructuring of the Department of Parks and Recreation last year.

The lawsuit calls for an ordinance passed by the council in September that split the department into two divisions to be voided.

Wolosky is represented in the case by Walter Luers, while Sparta Township is represented by Thomas Ryan, its municipal attorney. Calls to Ryan's office seeking comment were not immediately returned.

As outlined in the lawsuit, Wolosky has multiple objections to the council's actions.

In April 2010, the council adopted an ordinance that eliminated the Department of Parks of Recreation and the position of recreation director and created a new division within the Community Development Department called the Division of Recreation and Senior Services. Council members at the time called the ordinance a cost-saving measure; the elimination of the recreation director was purported to save the township about $120,000 annually in salary and benefits.

A month later, a committee of petitioners who objected to the ordinance garnered the necessary number of signatures on a petition calling for the measure's repeal and submitted the petition to Sparta Municipal Clerk Mary Coe. Wolosky said he was neither involved with the petition committee nor did he sign the petition.

Coe certified to the council that the petition was valid on June 22. On July 8, the council introduced a measure to repeal the ordinance and on July 27, it adopted that measure.

In September, the council passed, on second reading, an ordinance reorganizing the Department of Parks and Recreation that contained some language that was similar to that found in the repealed ordinance. The new ordinance split the department into two separate entities within the Community Development Department.

Citing a state statute, Wolosky contends that, because the council didn't take action to repeal the original ordinance within 20 days after the public's petition was certified, it was required to submit the ordinance to repeal to the public to vote upon in a general or special election. When Wolosky presented this argument to the council at its regular meeting Sept. 14, Ryan said that the fact that the council introduced the measure to repeal the ordinance within the 20-day timeframe was sufficient.

Wolosky's lawsuit also points out some of the similarities between the April and September ordinances and, citing another statute, alleges that the council is prohibited from passing an amended version of the repealed ordinance for three years unless it first presents it to the public to vote upon.

The defendants' response denies that the two ordinances are the same and claims that the statute in question only applies to ordinances that were voted upon in a general election, which the original measure was not.

Wolosky said he filed the lawsuit out of concern for how future petitions in Sparta will be handled.

"It's important for the residents of Sparta to discover whether or not the council was circumventing the law," he said. "What's the point of people having the right to petition if the council can just re-write a repealed ordinance?"

At the Sept. 14 meeting, Ryan called Wolosky's accusations that the council circumvented the law "grossly presumptuous."

The lawsuit is scheduled to be heard before Superior Court Judge Theodore Bozonelis Jan. 21. Sparta is asking that the judge dismiss the suit.

Sparta schools must release executive session minutes, judge rules

January 7, 2011

BY JEFF SISTRUNK

SPARTA -- A township resident has won a lawsuit against the Sparta Board of Education seeking copies of executive session minutes, less than two years after winning a similar case against Vernon Township.

Superior Court Judge Theodore Bozonelis, who also heard the Vernon case, ruled in Jesse Wolosky's favor on all points last month and issued an order Monday that outlined his ruling and contained several mandates to the Sparta Board of Education.

Under the order, the board also must reimburse Wolosky for his court and attorney's fees. Wolosky said an amount hasn't yet been finalized and that Bozonelis will determine his attorney's fees.

Wolosky filed the lawsuit in September following a pair of Open Public Records Act requests to the board. The lawsuit alleged that the board "violated the Open Public Records Act, the Open Public Meetings Act and New Jersey common law right of access by denying Wolosky copies of executive session minutes, not timely approving executive session minutes and not identifying the names of individuals discussed in executive session."

Executive session minutes are records that pertain to matters discussed by a government body in private. Tom Cafferty, an attorney for the New Jersey Press Association, said that such minutes can only be withheld from the public as long as "the interest in privacy outweighs the public's interest in access."

Wolosky's lawsuit stated that Warren Ceurvels, the board's secretary, failed to produce any executive session minutes for the time period spanning Jan. 1, 2002, to Sept. 10, 2006, and declined to provide Wolosky access to 13 sets of approved executive session minutes from 2009 and 2010. The suit also stated that the board didn't "promptly approve" five sets of executive session minutes from 2009 and 2010.

In his decision, Bozonelis declared that all three of these instances violated the Open Public Meetings Act. He also ordered the board to provide Wolosky access to the names of the public employees and public employee titles discussed in all existing executive session minutes from Jan. 1, 2002, through July 20, 2010, and to amend its policy regarding the maintenance of meeting minutes.

"I got everything I wanted out of this lawsuit," Wolosky said. "The board's claim that they are transparent to the public is false. They're conducting business behind closed doors away from the public's eyes, in the Dark Ages."

Jennifer Dericks, president of the Sparta Board of Education, acknowledged that previous boards failed to keep some records but said that in the three years Ceurvels has served as secretary, the board has maintained comprehensive executive session minutes.

With regard to the 13 sets of withheld minutes, Ceurvels said in his certification statement that his understanding was that the minutes were "exempt from public disclosure until ... the board (takes) formal action on the matters discussed during the executive session meeting."

After Wolosky filed his lawsuit, the board took action at its regular session Oct. 25to approve the five sets of unapproved executive session minutes mentioned in the suit.

Dericks said she doesn't think the board's handling of its meeting minutes will change drastically in light of Wolosky's lawsuit.

"The only thing that will change is that there will be much more scrutiny in ensuring that executive session minutes from previous meetings are promptly approved at the next meeting," she said.

Bozonelis' order calls for the board's policy regarding the maintenance of meeting minutes to be amended to include a detailed privilege/redaction log "describing the general topic discussed, the date on which the topic was discussed and the reason for the redaction." The board must review these logs and "ascertain if the legitimate reason for confidentiality continues to exist."

Dericks said she believes the board already made these revisions to its policy via a bylaw approved at the board's Nov. 22 regular meeting that formalized the requirements for recording and distributing meeting minutes.

Wolosky said his sole concern in the lawsuit was promoting transparency in government.

"For some reason, politics get involved when it comes to a government agency violating the law," he said. "If they didn't violate the law, I wouldn't have to file a lawsuit and a judge wouldn't end up agreeing with me. People are going to think, 'How much did the lawsuit cost us?' but it's not about money."

In the Vernon lawsuit, Bozonelis ruled in Wolosky's favor after township officials failed to fulfill Wolosky's Open Public Records Act requests. That suit resulted in Bozonelis ordering the Vernon Township Council to introduce an ordinance requiring the township clerk to produce draft executive session minutes for approval at the next scheduled meeting.

Sparta man sues Board of Education

October 17, 2010

BY JEFF SISTRUNK

SPARTA — Following a successful 2009 lawsuit against Vernon Township for failure to properly fulfill an Open Public Records Act request, Jesse Wolosky is taking the fight to the Sparta Board of Education.

Wolosky, of Sparta, filed a denial of access complaint against the Sparta board in September. The lawsuit alleges that the board “violated the Open Public Records Act, the Open Public Meetings Act and New Jersey common law right of access by denying Mr. Wolosky copies of executive session minutes, not timely approving executive session minutes and not identifying the names of individuals discussed in executive session.”

Warren Ceurvals, the board’s business administrator, said the attorneys for the two parties are exchanging information.

The lawsuit states that, when presented with two separate open records requests by Wolosky this year, Ceurvals failed to produce executive session meeting minutes for any meetings between January 2002 and September 2006, and that he disclosed minutes for only seven of 20 executive sessions between January 2009 and July 2010.

In regard to the minutes that were disclosed, the document alleges that the names of the Board of Education members who were discussed were redacted, which “there is no basis for under OPRA or OPMA.” In addition, the lawsuit alleges that the Board of Education has “only approved 12 sets of minutes from those 20 executive session meetings.”

According to the state Open Public Meetings Act, a public body must keep minutes of its meetings “showing the time and place, the members present, the subjects considered, the actions taken, the vote of each member, and any other information required to be shown in the minutes by law ...” and promptly make them available to the public.

Wolosky filed a complaint against Vernon Township in 2009 after his open records request for council minutes spanning a five-year period from January 2003 to November 2008 was fulfilled, albeit with redacted documents and excluding minutes from September through November 2008. In that lawsuit, Wolosky asked for the excluded minutes and unredacted copies.

Ultimately, a state Superior Court judge said the council had not been in compliance with open meetings and records laws in response to Wolosky’s request for the August through November 2008 minutes and ordered it to adopt an ordinance requiring the municipal clerk to prepare the requested minutes in time for approval at its next meeting.

Ceurvals said, in respect to the minutes he declined to release, “some information is, under the law, classified as non-disclosable, and some of the minutes fall into that category.”

“I don’t think (Wolosky) has grounds,” he said. “His claims are based on his interpretation of at what point closed session minutes are available to the public.”

Sparta Council again restructures Parks and Recreation Department

September 15, 2010

BY JEFF SISTRUNK

For The Herald

SPARTA — The Township Council unanimously approved an ordinance reorganizing the Parks and Recreation Department during a regular session Tuesday night.

Under the new ordinance, the department will be split into two separate entities within the Community Development Department — the Division of Recreation and Senior Services and the Division of Parks.

The measure is a revision of a previous ordinance that was repealed by the council in August.

The first ordinance, which passed in April by a vote of 3-2, was a cost-saving measure that restructured the Parks and Recreation Department. Among other things, it eliminated the position of the director of parks and recreation to save about $120,000 annually in salary and compensation.

A group of concerned citizens who thought the ordinance would sharply curtail recreation programs in Sparta drafted a petition to repeal and collected the necessary signatures in June.

If the council had let the original ordinance stand, it would have gone to a fall referendum, which would have cost between $18,000 and $20,000.

The new ordinance is largely the same as the original and only features minor tweaks. It does not reinstate the position of director.

Jesse Wolosky, a Sparta resident, said he didn’t have an issue with the council’s restructuring of the department but insisted that the council did not act lawfully in its response to the petition. He said the council didn’t take the appropriate actions to repeal the ordinance within 20 days after the petition was authorized.

“Frankly, the council is circumventing the law here,” Wolosky said.

Thomas Ryan, the municipal attorney, said he thought Wolosky was confused on his facts and didn’t understand the process. Ryan said the fact that the council introduced the ordinance of repeal within the 20-day time frame was sufficient.

“To say that the council is not acting within the law is grossly presumptuous,” he said.

Mayor Scott Seelagy said he would research Wolosky’s arguments.

The council also voted unanimously to appoint David Troast to the position of township manager. He will replace Henry Underhill, who resigned in May.

The council unanimously approved a measure to increase residents’ solid waste fees from $60 to $75 over the next two quarters to make up a budget shortfall of $137,000 in solid waste management.

Troast said the shortfall is attributable to a recent increase in tipping fees at the county’s landfill. This creates a trickle-down effect. Blue Diamond Disposal, the company that provides public garbage service to Sparta, has seen its operation costs increase, and it is within the bounds of its contract with the township to raise customers’ fees to make up the difference.

Despite the slight increase in solid waste fees, Seelagy said that residents’ annual costs will still be much lower than if they used private garbage services.

Vernon certifies petition to change government

September 14, 2010

By PHILLIP MOLNAR

VERNON — The township decided Monday night to validate a petition to change the municipality’s form of government, despite rejecting it last week.

The decision by township attorney John Ursin, with the apparent support of the council, brought a round of applause from the more than 40 members of the public in attendance — but it was not without controversy.
Mayor Sally Rinker and Councilman Richard Carson appeared to urge Ursin to expedite the process. “Let’s get this over with,” Carson said.

Ursin then decided, with a nod of support from Acting Township Clerk Angie Bates, that the petition could be certified Monday.

A letter from Bates Thursday stated the petitioners were 70 signatures short of the needed number to get the question before voters.
The petitioners responded to the decision by retaining Newton attorney Eric Wood, who argued their case to Ursin Monday afternoon. Many of the 618 rejected signatures were, in fact, valid, according to petitioners Mary Ellen

Vichiconti and Bonnie Rubin who personally reviewed the rejected names.
“It’s a shame it had to come to this,” Rubin said, of confronting Ursin with the group’s own attorney.
The petition seeks the establishment of non-partisan elections, direct election of a full-time mayor, and altering the duties of a township administrator to deal solely with township finances and business. The petition was submitted to Bates Aug. 23, giving her 10 days to review it to meet a Sept. 3 deadline to get the issue on the November ballot. Bates missed that deadline but completed her review within the allotted 20 days required by law.

The issue should now go before voters in a special election, but the petitioners are opposed to this because it would result in added costs to taxpayers
Wood said he would be bringing the petition to Superior Court Judge B. Theodore Bonzonelis in order to get the petition on the November ballot, but needed the approval of the township Monday evening in order to go before the judge.

Wood said if the petition was not certified Monday night, he would have spent the next “six or seven hours” preparing a complaint against the township and Sussex County.
The discussion was far from over, however. Sparta activist Jesse Wolosky, well-known for several of his own petitions in Sparta, question the validity of the petition. Wolosky alleged the initiative petition papers did not contain the full text of the proposed ordinance, each separate petition page did not have an attached affidavit stating circulators were the ones collecting signatures, and said the petitioners got more signatures than needed.
Petitioner Jessi Paladini then took to the microphone, questioning Wolosky’s “motivation for being here” and saying “he was 100-percent wrong.” A shouting match between the two went on for several minutes, while Rinker repeatedly slammed her gavel and yelled for order. Wolosky was eventually asked to leave the meeting by Rinker.

After the meeting, Wolosky said, “I wanted to make sure both sides were following the law regarding the petition process.”

Ursin confirmed after the meeting was adjourned the petition would be validated by Bates Monday evening and physically delivered to the Board of Elections today.

State lowers price tag for public records

September 12, 2010

By PHILLIP MOLNAR

NEWTON -- Martin O'Shea, a former journalist and open government advocate, called his municipality's township manager in fall 2008 and asked her to lower public fees for government records.

O'Shea spent much of his life, especially his 18 retirement years, bringing much-needed reform to open government and the Open Public Records Act -- a tool for everyday New Jerseyans to learn the inner workings of their government in a state well known for corruption.

Hardyston Township Manager Marianne Smith said last week she couldn't remember what came first, "the chicken or the egg," but the township soon decided after speaking with O'Shea to lower its fees for paper copies of government documents and audio recordings of meetings.

The township became the first municipality in Sussex County to lower fees to 10 cents per copy. The rest of the county took longer.

"Trying to cause change takes time; it takes effort," said Sparta activist Jesse Wolosky, who was also fighting to lower government record fees around the same time as O'Shea.

The activists' hard work paid off. Today all municipalities in the county charge 10 cents or less per paper copy -- instead of as much as 75 cents as many once did -- and the change is happening all over the state.

Sussex County was one of the "isolated pockets" in the Garden State that pushed officials to lower fees for government records, according to John Paff, the chairman of the New Jersey Libertarian Party's Open Government Advocacy Project.

Late Friday afternoon, a bill lowering the fee of letter size paper documents to 5 cents per copy and legal size pages to 7 cents per copy was signed by Gov. Chris Christie.

Now, the average citizen who was once charged $7.50 for 10 pages of government records, will instead pay just 50 cents.

The bill, which also made documents sent by fax and e-mail free, had been approved by the state Legislature in June. Christie had until Monday to sign or veto the bill.

New Jerseyans have more access to government documents, such as budgets and meeting minutes, since 2002, when the Open Public Records Act, known as OPRA, was passed. But confusion about how much to charge for government records has baffled municipalities since.

"The Legislature didn't know what the Legislature meant," Paff said.

Regardless, individuals concerned about government transparency fought hard to change what they said was an injustice.

The problem, as Wolosky and many others saw it, was that the bill's default rate for what to charge the public for paper copies was 75 cents per page (the maximum allowable by law) for the first 10 pages -- but nowhere in the law did it say the government agencies should charge that much, especially considering one sheet of paper and toner hardly reached that amount.

The public could also be charged 50 cents for each of the next 10 pages and 25 cents for every page after that.

"They should have been charging actual costs," Wolosky said, noting the law did not allow agencies to charge labor costs. "It was a shakedown, and people weren't aware of it."

O'Shea had already reduced fees for records in the County Clerk's Office, Andover Township and Hardyston, when Wolosky revved up his own campaign to lower fees in summer 2009. Although the two individuals were on similar missions, they never met.

"We were doing the same thing," Wolosky said. "But we took different paths."

Wolosky started out the year settling a complaint with the Government Records Council, which oversees OPRA complaints, against Hopatcong. Before his complaint, Hopatcong had been charging $20 for audio recordings, the maximum amount for government records, and was not using the model OPRA form.

Wolosky later convinced Hamburg, Stillwater, Newton, Vernon and Walpack to lower their fees after personally speaking with the clerks.

"I just walked in and asked the clerk, who was very pleasant, and said, 'Would you mind lowering the fees for audio and paper?'" he recalled of visiting Hamburg Clerk Doreen Schott, who then presented a proposed change to the council.

In May 2009, he e-mailed the remaining 16 Sussex County municipalities seeking fee reductions. Most of them lowered the fees, or had done so already. Fredon and Green were final holdouts in the county.

Sussex County may have been ahead of the curve with the OPRA law, but thanks to a February state appellate court ruling, the rest of the state caught up.

In his opinion, Judge Jack Sabatino wrote that beginning July 1, "The defendant counties (Hudson, Hunterdon, Morris, Middlesex, Mercer, Passaic and Sussex) and other government agencies may not charge requestors more than the 'actual costs' of photocopying government records."

The rest of New Jersey, not just the seven counties included in the appellate decision, will start next week finding it more affordable to obtain government records.

"This new law brings a new day for transparency in New Jersey," wrote Bobby Conner of the New Jersey American Civil Liberties Union in a press release Saturday morning. "Now public records will be more available to everyone, not just those who can afford it. It will help New Jersey's citizens to better hold their officials accountable."

School accidentally sends out thousands of social security numbers

WABC-TV New York, NY
Eyewitness News

Here is WABC TV video report.
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/video?id=7530028

School accidentally sends out thousands of social security numbers
June 30, 2010 Updated at 06:22 PM today

Jim Hoffer
Eyewitness News

SPARTA, N.J. (WABC) -- A social security number is vitally important personal information that should be closely guarded. One resident in the small New Jersey town of Sparta was shocked when he received thousands of social security numbers sent directly to him by the town school.

Taxpayer Jesse Wolosky wanted to see how the school where he lived was spending its money, so he filed an Open Records request for the names of all the vendors doing business for the Sparta School District. In return, he got thousands of names of contractors and consultants. Surprisingly, included in the files were their private social security numbers.

"That was alarming, I know that should have been redacted, not sent to me," said Wolosky.

Wendi Blanchard, who did technology training for Sparta teachers 15 years ago, blames her former employer for being careless with her personal information.

"That they would retain this information as an active vendor seems foolish first of all, second of all, I am just appalled that anyone would be so cavalier and just not even check something like this in this day and age when we are so concerned about our identity." Blanchard said.

New Jersey's Open Public Records Act clearly states "A public agency has a responsibility and an obligation to safeguard" personal information. To not do so would "violate a citizen's reasonable expectation of privacy."

Essentially, the school district violated the Open Public Records Act.

"We made a mistake including the wrong file, yes. We openly admit that but hopefully that information hasn't been disseminated beyond Mr. Wolosky and that he'll return the information," said Dr. Warren Ceurvels of the Sparta School District.

Wolosky intends to return the documents in exchange for ones without social security numbers. What troubles him is what else may have fallen through the cracks.

"Because if someone can send this kind of information and on something as simple as this, they can't do this right, there are probably many other things they are not doing right," said Wolosky.

The school administrator insists the district is careful with personal information and that this is the first time something like this has happened.

Wolosky, who was already worried about how the school was being run, says this just adds to his concerns.

If you have a tip about this or any other issue you'd like investigated, please give our tipline a call at 877-TIP-NEWS. You may also e-mail us at the.investigators@abc.com and follow Jim Hoffer on Twitter at twitter.com/nycinvestigates

(Copyright ©2010 WABC-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

Sparta official accidentally releases hundreds of Social Security numbers in public records request

Published: Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Meredith Galante / The Star-Ledger

SPARTA — When Jesse Wolosky filed an Open Public Records Act request attempting to find out how the Sparta School District spent its $62 million annual budget, he just wanted access to the master vendor list.

The list would break down the individuals and companies the school district cut checks to throughout 2009.

The OPRA became too transparent last Thursday, however, when Wolosky obtained the information he wanted and much, much more. Wolosky received "hundreds upon hundreds" of Social Security numbers and federal employee identification numbers of school district vendors.

"This is extremely careless," said Wolosky, a Sparta resident. "Normally they redact the Social Security numbers and telephone numbers. It’s one click on an Excel spreadsheet. This is negligent and someone needs to hold them accountable."

Sparta business administrator Warren Ceurvels, who sent Wolosky the documents in an e-mail, said today the information was released "inadvertently" and that "it was an unfortunate mistake."

Ceurvels said the Sparta Board of Education is aware of the situation. The school district will send letters to people mentioned in the document given to Wolosky to alert them of the mistake and potential risk.

Wolosky, a self-proclaimed concerned citizen and public activist, said he plans to do nothing with the Social Security numbers. Ceurvels said he expects Wolosky to return the information as soon as possible.

Catherine Starghill, the executive director of the New Jersey Government Records Council, said OPRA, which was enacted in 2002, exempts Social Security numbers from being released in OPRA requests. There is no formal policy or statute to penalize custodians who disclose this information, said Stargill.

Ceurvels and Starghill said they were not aware of the document with the private information being given to anyone else.

Ceurvels said the Sparta Board of Education is aware of the situation. The school district will send letters to people mentioned in the document given to Wolosky to alert them of the mistake and potential risk.

Wolosky, a self-proclaimed concerned citizen and public activist, said he plans to do nothing with the Social Security numbers. Ceurvels said he expects Wolosky to return the information as soon as possible.

Catherine Starghill, the executive director of the New Jersey Government Records Council, said OPRA, which was enacted in 2002, exempts Social Security numbers from being released in OPRA requests. There is no formal policy or statute to penalize custodians who disclose this information, said Starghill.

Ceurvels and Starghill said they were not aware of the document with the private information being given to anyone else.

Error leads to privacy breach

June 30, 2010

By SETH AUGENSTEIN

SPARTA — A local activist’s recent public records request resulted in some extra information — including some personal Social Security numbers, and some federal tax identification numbers.

Jesse Wolosky, a well-known Sparta activist who recently lost a bid for a township council seat, put in a request for a list of vendors to the Sparta Board of Education, board President Jennifer Dericks said.

However, the list including redacted confidential information — such as the Social Security and tax identification numbers — got switched with the documents that still had all the information intact. The extra information was sent to Wolosky.

“The wrong list got sent out,” Dericks said. “It was an error; it was a mistake. It was a bad one.”

The mistake was not a widescale security breach, like computer hacking, Dericks said; instead, the leak of information is limited to Wolosky.

She said the school district sent Wolosky a letter asking for the return of the numbers; it also informed him any use of the information would be a breach of Open Public Records Act rules.

The law precludes government records custodians from giving out personal, sensitive or otherwise compromising information about public employees.

Wolosky called the Social Security number release a “bad government practice.”

“These are the people who educate and protect our children, and they can’t even protect our Social Security numbers,” he said.

Wolosky declined to give further specifics on the extent of personal data he received. He said he had no plans to use any of the information for any purpose.

John Paff, the chairman of the Open Government Advocacy Project of the New Jersey Libertarian Party, said the Sparta schools had “violated OPRA” when it came to releasing the sensitive information.

“They’re not supposed to release this stuff, but office errors do happen,” Paff said.
“It highlights the need for custodians to be careful — once the genie’s out of the bottle, there’s no getting it back in,” he added.

Judge: Petition seeking to recall Ridgefield Mayor Suarez valid; paves way for special election

Monday, June 14, 2010
LAST UPDATED: MONDAY JUNE 14, 2010, 5:52 PM
BY MATTHEW VAN DUSEN
THE RECORD
STAFF WRITER

RIDGEFIELD – An election to recall Mayor Anthony Suarez could take place as early as Aug. 17 following a state Superior Court ruling that borough Republicans gathered enough signatures to force an election.

Judge Robert Wilson wrote that Borough Clerk Linda Prina improperly disqualified 104 signatures for technical reasons and that the petitioners gathered more than the number required.

“While some of the signatures may have been validly rejected, the petitioner has nonetheless substantially demonstrated that they obtained the 1,451 to compel a recall election,” Wilson wrote in the decision, which was released on Monday.

Borough Democratic head Stephen Pellino said he would appeal the decision on Tuesday and seek a stay stopping the clock on the recall election. He said the Democrats were not able to present their case at the Friday hearing before Wilson.

Suarez wrote in a statement that he was “disappointed” with the decision and thanked his supporters.

Prina said that she must now serve Suarez, a Democrat, with a certificate that says the recall petition has met state requirements, after which he has five business days to resign or face recall.
The recall election could take place on Aug. 17 or Aug. 24, depending on when he is served with the certificate, Prina added.

The Democratic mayor was arrested last July for allegedly agreeing to accept bribes from a FBI informant posing as a developer. Suarez has protested his innocence and refused calls to step down.

Robert Avery, the attorney who argued the case and also the head of the petition committee, said the recall is a way for “the people of Ridgefield to stand up and defend themselves against political corruption.”

Republicans have been talking about recalling Suarez for almost a year.

Avery, the borough’s Republican head, and several councilmen formed a petition committee and gathered approximately 1,850 signatures, which they submitted to Prina in March. Borough Democrats also filed a lengthy objection to the petition.

Prina ultimately approved only 1,412 of the signatures, short of the required 1,451, or 25 percent of the borough’s registered voters.

Prina rejected some signatures because the signers failed to put a date beside their signatures, while discounting others because the petition circulators forgot to put the date or their names on the sheets, according to Wilson’s order.

One signature was invalidated because the voter died after signing the petition, even though his daughter affirmed that he had signed, Wilson wrote.

Wilson wrote of one contested group of signatures that “the missing elements… are technical errors made in good faith pertaining to ministerial functions and as such are insufficient to deprive the citizens of their right to vote.”

Jesse Wolosky, a Sparta resident who advises recall efforts including Ridgefield’s, said the fault for the improperly rejected signatures lay not with Prina but with the convoluted state law.

Democrats have noted that Suarez is scheduled to go on trial in early September and the verdict will render the election moot.

Ex-Frankford clerk violated OPRA

November 15, 2009

By SETH AUGENSTEIN

FRANKFORD -- The retired township clerk violated the state's Open Public Records Act three times last year, according to recent decisions by the Government Records Council.

The GRC determined former clerk Louanne Cular violated the law by not fulfilling two citizens' government requests last year. The requests sought documents such as financial disclosure statements for public officials and minutes from most township committee meetings in 2008.

Cular said Friday she had not heard about the decisions, and declined comment.

The battle between Cular and the requestors, resident Henry Knaust and local activist Jesse Wolosky, turned into a sometimes-hostile dialogue last year over whether the clerk was required to e-mail or fax the documents.

The documents Knaust requested were faxed to him several days before he filed the complaint, and the GRC did not award him attorney's fees for his complaint, even though Cular violated OPRA, according to GRC. However, Wolosky was fully denied parts of his longer request, and although some of the documents were made available at a copying cost, they were not sent by e-mail as he requested.

Hostilities marked the months-long dialogue between the clerk and the activist. Wolosky's interaction with the clerk turned into an e-mail standoff at one point, just before he filed his complaint. He bluntly asked in one e-mail, "Are you ignoring me and denying my OPRA request?"

Cular responded curtly three hours later.

"We have been in touch with you from the day that your request was filed," she wrote. "We asked for a deposit; you ignord (sic) that. You ignored my deputies (sic) e-mail also. So please drop the arrogant attitude. Your records have been sitting in my office since the day after you requested them."

The GRC determined they should have been e-mailed. Now the council will review the documents Wolosky was denied, and then decide whether they should be released. After that, the council will determine whether Wolosky receives attorney's fees, and whether Cular was "knowing and willful" in violating OPRA. If she was "knowing and willful," she could be subject to a personal fine. First-time complaints against records custodians carry a $1,000 fine.

The third violation, for denying Wolosky's request for executive session minutes and for charging him $25 for an audiotape of a meeting, will also undergo the same "knowing and willful" scrutiny by the council.

Walter Luers, Wolosky's lawyer, said the records should have been released, even if they had to be partly redacted to protect confidential information.

"You can't just withhold whole documents," Luers said Friday.

Wolosky's Frankford requests are only a part of his countywide OPRA endeavors. He was a driving force behind the sea change in Sussex County open records fees, which have been lowered in nearly every town to 10 cents or less per copy. He said Frankford was a special case among all the other towns -- and is now undergoing some self-evaluation, through contentious elections and even an upcoming recall election of Mayor Paul Sutphen.

"There was something wrong in Frankford Township," Wolosky said Friday. "(Now) the people are making changes for democracy and transparency. Maybe I helped them get there."

Patricia Bussow, the current Frankford clerk, said the township had made changes in direct response to Wolosky. First, Frankford lowered its per-page cost for copies to 10 cents, and then it made open records requests available by e-mail.

"We did change, so we could get on board with that," Bussow said. "We tried to simplify as much as we could."

According to the Government Record Council's Web site, denial of access complaints across the Garden State are multiplying as citizens have become more familiar with OPRA, which was passed in 2001. There were 220 such complaints in 2006, 310 in 2007, and at least 284 in 2008.

Communities lower records fees

September 18, 2009

By SETH AUGENSTEIN

Every Sussex County municipality is on board with lower fees for public documents.

Twenty of the 24 municipalities in the county have changed their costs per copied page to nominal amounts, ranging from 5 to 12 cents. The majority now charge a dime.

Three of the four remaining municipalities -- Sparta, Hampton and Frankford -- are in the process of lowering their paper copies to 10 cents or lower through ordinances to be voted upon this month. The sole remaining town, Green, has suspended all Open Public Records Act fees while they consider changes to their ordinance.

Only the Sussex County government itself is sticking with the state maximum for documents -- 75 cents per page for the first 10 pages, decreasing to 50 and then 25 cents based on how many pages are requested.

Audio recordings continue to vary in availability and cost, particularly in some of the smaller Sussex County towns. However, most communities said a CD of a municipal meeting would cost between 35 to 50 cents.

The sea change in records costs came this year, and sped up quickly this summer. The quick turnaround was brought about by several state open government advocates, but mostly by Sparta activist Jesse Wolosky.

Wolosky was vigilant about cajoling, persuading, and lodging about a dozen complaints with the state's Government Records Council against some communities in just a matter of months. He even had a lawsuit ready to file against Sparta before it decided to change its fees. He said he was pleased with the result of his tenacity.

"I'm not asking for a lot -- I just want transparency," he said.

Two of the towns, Hardyston and Andover Township, were convinced to switch their fee schedule by Martin O'Shea, a former journalist and current advocate for New Jersey open government.

Most local officials said they supported or were ambivalent about the changes -- although some bemoaned a lack of guidance from the state. Hampton Administrator Eileen Klose said there should be a uniform cost for the records so as to avoid confusion from community to community.

Changes in the Garden State could be heading toward some kind of uniform standards. Several court cases in New Jersey have pointed toward "actual cost" guidelines, meaning just the material cost -- paper, toner, blank CD -- should be passed onto the person requesting the records.

Sussex County is at the forefront of the massive -- and belated -- shift in the cost of public records statewide, according to another open government activist, John Paff. While some areas, like Morris County, continue to stick to the 75-cents-per-page model, he said change can come quickly once it gains momentum, like it did in Sussex County.

"Once the monolithic facade gets cracked, it all starts to change," Paff said.

Wolosky said he hoped the changes would continue within the county -- and beyond.

"It's a good result for the general public," he said.

Towns slash public records fees

July 8, 2009

By SETH AUGENSTEIN

Sussex County is at the forefront of the evolving cost of public records.

Of the county's 24 municipalities, 19 have lowered or are in the process of lowering their per-page Open Public Records Act copy fees to nominal costs, with 18 of those towns charging a dime or less. The towns also have scaled back the prices of audio recordings of meetings on CDs and cassettes.

The five municipalities still charging what the state recommends as the maximum fee -- 75 cents for each of the first 10 paper copies, followed by a sliding scale of 50 and 25 cents for subsequent pages -- are Frankford, Fredon, Green, Hampton and Sparta. However, the Frankford, Green and Hampton township committees all already have begun discussions on scaling back their own OPRA fees to account for "actual cost," or charging roughly the cost of materials to fulfill the request, whether it's the paper and toner required to copy a page, or a blank audio CD. Green has even suspended its charges for public records while its township committee discusses a possible new set of fees.

Sparta and Fredon are the only towns not considering changing from the 75-cents-per-page model. The county also continues to follow that same, state-maximum model.

Audio recordings vary in availability and cost in several of the smaller towns in the county, but most towns said a CD of a meeting would cost between 35-50 cents.

The countywide changes among the municipalities are relatively new; seven towns have changed or are in the process of changing their fee schedules in the first three weeks of July. The other towns scaled back their fees just this year -- except for Hardyston, which changed its fees in 2007.

The result of the latest changes in the public record fees is due to the tag-team activism of two individuals. The Hardyston cost reduction two years ago was brought by the lobbying of Martin O'Shea, a resident who happens to be a statewide open government activist. Andover Township lowered its paper fees to 7 cents and its CD cost to 40 cents after O'Shea lobbied there as well several months ago.

The most recent push, though, has been spearheaded by Sparta activist Jesse Wolosky. In a series of countywide open public record requests, Wolosky demanded the fees be lowered, and even indicated lawsuits against the towns could be possible. Most towns quickly complied with ordinance changes, fearing legal costs from fighting a court battle. Most of the towns now charge 10 cents per page, with some towns lowering their rate to as little as 5 cents. Wolosky said it was his "summer project" to get the fees lowered for the public at large, which resulted in the recent conversion of 16 more of the county's municipalities.

"There's a change in the air," Wolosky said. "That's good."

Sussex County is at the forefront of the massive -- and belated -- shift in the cost of public records statewide, according to open government activist John Paff. While some areas, like Morris County, continue to stick to the 75-cents-per-page model, he said change can come quickly once it gains momentum, like it did in Sussex County.

"Once the monolithic facade gets cracked, it all starts to change," Paff said.

The cracks in the statewide facade of records costs could bust wide open in the next several months, according to onlookers.

In a Mercer County court ruling in May, the judge ruled in favor of a class-action lawsuit, saying "actual cost" was the intent of law. Since then, joint insurance funds representing more than 100 towns across the Garden State have advised their municipal clients they may owe reimbursements for public records requests dating back to the law's 2001 passage.

However, two other lawsuits, which ruled in favor of higher fees than statewide activists had hoped, are awaiting appeals. In one of them, O'Shea unsuccessfully sued the Sussex County Clerk's Office in 2007 for charging a quarter per copy. An appeal on the case is scheduled to be heard this fall.
O'Shea, who's been fighting the actual cost battle statewide for several years, was pleased Sussex County has made strides toward open government, and he was happy with the result.

"That's marvelous," he said.

Many of the municipal clerks overseeing the changes in Sussex County said they were in favor of public access, including the lower costs for copying.

Beth Brothman, the Andover Borough clerk, said she just passed along the actual cost to requesters.

Lorraine Read, Newton's clerk, said she agreed with the simple concept of the lower fees.
"It does make more sense," Read said.

"This actually makes it cut-and-dry across the board."

Robin Kline, Vernon's clerk, said the new rules, and a proactive stance toward requesters, makes the process work better.

"When you work with the public in getting them the records they want, you build a rapport with them, and it works for everyone," she said.

Wolosky said his "summer project" would be followed by a "fall project" -- most notably, working on lowering public records costs at local boards of education.