Following is a news article reporting on $100 fines being imposed upon four Hasbrouck Heights (Bergen County) officials who failed to file their Financial Disclosure Statements. The fines were levied by Hasbrouck Height’s own municipal ethics board, and not the Local Finance Board (LFB). The LFB, to my knowledge, has yet to fine anyone for […]
Posted inNJ Open Government Notes
Charging for faxed and e-mailed records
Whenever I make an OPRA request, I ask that the responsive records be sent to me by fax or e-mail instead of by regular mail. I prefer to submit my OPRA requests and receive my records by fax or e-mail because it is much faster (i.e. the Postal Service is not involved in the process.) […]
Posted inNJ Open Government Notes
Margate to Require Employees and Officers to use City e-mail accounts
The City of Margate (Atlantic County) will soon require its officers and employees who use e-mail for municipal business to use their “margate-nj.com” e-mail addresses and not their personal e-mail addresses (e.g. Yahoo.com, Gmail.com, Verizon.net, etc.) The City’s policy change was announced in a September 3, 2009 letter sent in response to an August 31, […]
Posted inNJ Civil Settlements
Atlantic City pays $40,000 to police abuse claimant
In November 2008, Seth Rouzier of Bridgeport, Connecticut, accepted $40,000 in settlement of his claim against Atlantic City Police Officers Frank Timek and Richard Lasco. In his lawsuit, Rouzier alleged that the two officers physically assaulted him in connection with their November 5, 2005 investigation of an incident at the Hard Rock Cafe on the […]
Posted inNJ Open Government Notes
Media reports on officials’ failure to disclose finances
Lately, I’ve been filing complaints against municipal officials who fail to file the Financial Disclosure Statements required by the Local Government Ethics Law (LGEL). The newspapers have been picking up on my complaints, and two similar articles–one from yesterday’s the Express Times regarding Hackettstown and another from Wednesday’s Star Ledger regarding South Amboy–are set forth […]