On June 3, 2015, the Borough of Belmar (Monmouth County) agreed to pay $15,000 to a Department of Public Works laborer who said he was fired because he had reported on the job alcohol and drug use by other DPW employees. In his suit, Gregory Vasil, who claimed that Belmar hired him despite his former […]
Posted inNJ Open Government Notes
Unpublished trial court OPRA opinion.
“Unpublished opinions” are not published in the law books and are not ordinarily written about in legal periodicals. Unless somebody puts them on-line and calls attention to them, they are likely not to be located by people who may want to search for them. I think that it’s important that court opinions, even if they […]
Posted inNJ Open Government Notes
Passaic County sued for prompt access to settlement records.
On November 23, 2015, Richard M. Gutman of Montclair filed an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) lawsuit on my behalf seeking prompt disclosure of records regarding the settlement that resolved a lawsuit against the Passaic County Sheriff’s Department. While the lawsuit was marked “settled” by the court on October 9, 2015, the County was still […]
Posted inNJ Civil Settlements
Pleasantville secretly pays $50,000 to settle police K-9 attack, excessive force lawsuit.
On October 7, 2015, the City of Pleasantville (Atlantic County) agreed to pay $50,000 to a local man who said that a police canine was ordered to attack him and other officers beat him after he was already handcuffed and face down on the ground. In his suit, Jalal Whitted, who suffers from a pre-existing […]
Posted inRandom Notes on NJ Government
Open letter to Director of the Office of Attorney Ethics.
November 29, 2015 Charles Centinaro, Director Office of Attorney Ethics via e-mail only to [email protected] Dear Director Centinaro: I want to share with you (and the public) my experience being a complainant in an attorney ethics grievance bearing docket numbers IIA-2015-0010E and IIA-2015-0011E. I have redacted the attorneys’ names from all of the documents at […]