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.
