Transparency NJ

I chair the New Jersey Libertarian Party’s Open Government Advocacy Project which seeks more openness and accountability from government, especially at the local level. I submitted an OPRA request to Pilesgrove Township for some of the Township Committee’s resolutions that authorize the exclusion of the public from Committee meetings (i.e. to go into closed or […]

I have submitted the following two OPRA requests to the Local Finance Board in an attempt to document the Board’s poor performance. John PaffSomerset, New Jersey —-Request Confirmation No. W41209 BACKGROUND: A May 30, 2008 article in the Record “Oury failed to file required disclosures, clerk says,” reported that Bergenfield Borough Clerk Catherine Navarro-Steinel had […]

The vast majority of municipalities in New Jersey do not have their own ethics boards. So, any citizen complaints alleging that local officials in these municipalities violate the Local Government Ethics Law are handled at the state level–by the Local Finance Board (LFB). The Legislature passed the Local Government Ethics Law because “[t]he vitality and […]

As previously reported, on October 3, 2008 I filed a civil complaint against seventeen Atlantic County municipalities in order to address their noncompliance with the Open Public Records Act and the Sen. Byron M. Baer Open Public Meetings Act . Since then, I have negotiated Consent Judgments with the following municipalities: Buena Vista Township, Egg […]

The Open Public Records Act (OPRA) expressly states that “in the case of a municipality,.the municipal clerk” is the designated custodian of government records. N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1.1. I’ve always taken this to mean that once an OPRA request was submitted to the municipal clerk, the clerk was responsible for fulfilling and responding to the request even […]