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.
