Update: Governor Murphy signed this bill into law on March 20, 2020. Many public agencies are already conducting electronic meetings.
The New Jersey Legislature is currently considering numerous bills in response to the current COVID-19 pandemic. One bill is A3850, which passed in the Assembly on March 16, 2020, and will likely also pass in the Senate very soon. A3850 amends a public body’s obligations under the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA) during a state of emergency. Because this is Sunshine Week and transparency is very important during a crisis, we decided to devote a blog to ...
We close Sunshine Week by featuring Jennifer A. Borg, Esq.
Ms. Borg is General Counsel and Vice President of North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record. She is a recognized authority in First Amendment and open governance matters, particularly as they affect newspapers, and has recently served as Chair of the New Jersey Press Association. She also has litigated numerous OPRA lawsuits with successful results. Ms. Borg was featured in the ABA Journal (July 2014) for her expertise in OPRA and public records access issues. Pashman Stein regularly serves as co-counsel with North ...
Today’s Sunshine Week profile features Rich Rivera, a police practices expert who uses OPRA to monitor police misconduct and the use of force by police officers on citizens. Mr. Rivera is the Chairman of the Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey’s Civil Rights Protection Project, which addresses the community’s needs relating to police services and police interactions. He is a former Board Member of the ACLU of New Jersey, where he co-authored the report “The Crisis Inside Police Internal Affairs.” Pashman Stein has litigated several cases on Mr. Rivera’s behalf.
Pursuant to the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA), meeting minutes must be “promptly available” to the public. Our courts have held that “promptly available” means within two weeks after the public body’s last meeting or at least 48 hours prior to the next meeting. At any point after that, you are free to submit an OPRA request for the minutes and access must be granted within seven (7) business days. But what about closed/executive session minutes?
OPMA allows a public body to meet in closed session to shield certain information from the public. Among other things, these ...
