Editor NJ Herald:
"He's always filing court actions against municipalities and boards of education.""Why doesn't he warn them first" and "give them a chance to correct their violations?" That's what I have heard in the past, so I decided this time to warn this board before filing a complaint in court.
Will they take my warning seriously this time and avoid another lawsuit? We'll see.
The Sparta Township Board of Education has adopted a new practice as of Nov. 28, 2011, of publishing on its website under its agenda, on page 23, a so-called list under the heading "Unfinished Business" titled "OPRA Requests."The "OPRA Requests" lists Open Public Records Act requests by selected political opponents and critics and the purported time spent and legal fees of those OPRA requests.
The purpose and effect of the "OPRA Requests" list, is apparently to intimidate the Board of Education officials' political opponents and critics from filing OPRA requests in violation of their First Amendment freedoms of speech and association and the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause.
I request that the Board of Education halt the maintenance and publication of its "OPRA Requests" list of individual New Jersey citizens' names.
Please contact me or remove and halt such publication, if you wish to resolve this matter short of litigation in Federal Court.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Jesse Wolosky
Sparta
Sparta
