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."
