On July 15, 2020, the Senate Law and Public Safety Committee held its first public hearing on police reform in New Jersey. The hearing was intended to be a discussion on policing issues in general and no particular legislative bill was before the committee, but police transparency was a frequent topic.
The hearing opened with live testimony from Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, who acknowledged that even after his recent decision to disclose the names of officers who receive major discipline, New Jersey still lags behind the rest of the nation when it comes to providing transparency ...
Last week, Bergen County Assignment Judge Bonnie J. Mizdol issued an opinion finding that the Borough of North Arlington unlawfully imposed a special service charge upon a records requestor who sought records from the Borough's Facebook pages.
The OPRA request at issue in Wronko v. North Arlington sought the list of individuals who had been banned from the Borough's Facebook page, as well as a list of any words that had been censored and the list of page administrators. In response, the Borough insisted it needed to use an outside IT consultant to capture the screenshots necessary to ...
One question we frequently receive is whether an agency can charge a requestor an hourly rate to respond to an OPRA request. The answer is yes, but only in specific circumstances where a requestor seeks an extraordinarily large volume of records.
N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5(c) provides that:
Whenever the nature, format, manner of collation, or volume of a government record embodied in the form of printed matter to be inspected, examined, or copied pursuant to this section is such that the record cannot be reproduced by ordinary document copying equipment in ordinary business size or involves an ...
For years, individuals have filed OPRA requests with agencies to obtain all of the OPRA requests an agency has received during a specific timeframe. Requestors use these records in a variety of ways, such as a) finding out how many OPRA requests an agency is handling during any specific timeframe (since agencies have no obligation to calculate that information and let the public know); b) being able to contact another member of the public who is interested in the same type of government issues; c) learning more about government by seeing what other requestors are seeking from their ...
In enacting OPRA, the Legislature created two exemptions for police records. The first exemption is the “ongoing investigation exemption.” N.J.S.A. 47:1A-3(a). For that exemption to apply, an investigation must be ongoing and the police agency must prove that release of the records would be “inimical to the public interest.” Even if the police do prove that releasing the records while the investigation is ongoing would be harmful, ultimately the records must be released after the investigation concludes.
OPRA’s other exemption, the “criminal investigatory ...
OPRA requires public agencies to respond within 7 business days of your request. (Tip: Begin counting the first business day after you filed the request). A public agency must respond within 7 business days and either: 1) Produce responsive records; 2) Tell you that access is being denied and reason for the denial; or 3) Ask for an extension of time to respond.
But what do you do if the government fails to respond (a deemed denial) or denies access to a record that you know is not exempt?
The best course of action is to immediately speak to an attorney, who can work with you to gain access to the ...
Section 5 of OPRA is clear that government records must be available “as soon as possible.” It then provides an outer time limit for public agencies—records must be produced as soon as possible, “but not later than seven business days after receiving the request.” Unfortunately, fewer and fewer public agencies comply with these rigid timelines. Most agencies produce records on the 7th business day, even though they are supposed to be available “as soon as possible.” And many agencies have moved to automatically taking an extension of time for each and every OPRA ...
The New Jersey Supreme Court has granted the Township of Bloomfield’s Motion for Leave to appeal in Gilleran v. Twp. of Bloomfield, 440 N.J. Super. 490 (App. Div. 2015, making the Appellate Division’s decision subject to the Court’s review.
In this case, Ms. Gilleran initially filed an OPRA request for a week’s worth of video footage from a security camera at the rear of the Municipal Building. She sought the footage to confirm whether certain politically connected individuals were visiting the municipal complex, as was rumored. The camera is in plain sight and sits above the ...
While overwhelmingly most agencies accept emailed or faxed requests or have an online portal to submit OPRA requests, there are a handful of agencies that do not. The Government Records Council (GRC) recently ruled that the refusal to accept at least one form of electronically submitted requests violates OPRA.
On September 29, 2015, the GRC ruled in Russo v. City of East Orange (Essex), GRC Complaint No. 2014-430, that “the City’s policy of banning submission of OPRA requests electronically represents an unreasonable obstacle on access.” In its decision, the GRC recounted ...
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.
Most public agencies have adopted official OPRA Request Forms that they place on their websites. For frequent requestors, filling out the official form each and every time a request is made can be time consuming so many opt to send their requests in the body of an email to the records custodian. According to New Jersey case law, this is perfectly acceptable. In Renna v. County of Union, 407 N.J. Super. 230 (App. Div. 2009), the Appellate Division held that no public agency may deny an OPRA request simply because the requestor did not use the agency’s official OPRA Request Form. However, a ...
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When you make a valid OPRA request, a public agency has seven business days to respond. But, if your request is invalid for some reason, the custodian can deny your request. The clock will then start all over again if you re-write your request and re-submit it. Here are some basic guidelines to help you craft requests that will be upheld by the courts:
- Make sure that your request seeks a record, and not information. Invalid Request: “Please provide the times when Employee X arrives to work.” Valid Request ...
