Open Government Advocacy Project
The Open Government Advocacy Project is a committee of the NJ Libertarian Party. Its goal is to ensure transparency and accountability at all levels of government. Articles posted here are a subset of the work of the committee. For more information visit the Open Government Advocacy Project blog.
If you would like to demand accountability and ensure that your local governing body or school board adheres to the Open Public Records Act we can help you request information from them. Contact John Paff, the project chair here.
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- Written by: Colleen O'Dea
(via NJSpotlight)
Name: John Paff
Hometown: Franklin Township, Somerset County
Family: Wife Diane, children Alex, 16, and Katie, 12
Age: 56
Best known as: New Jersey's busiest open-government activist
How he got started: "I guess I've always been interested in how things work, how the system works." But it's not just how things work. A lifelong New Jerseyan -- he grew up in Cumberland County and moved to the Middlesex/Somerset area when he went to college at Rutgers University -- he wants to make sure that state government works as well as possible.
Paff started working with the Forfeiture Endangers American Rights, a group looking to reform federal and state asset forfeiture laws, in 1992, and then moved to trying to improve attorney ethics before landing on open government issues. He now chairs the New Jersey Libertarian Party's Open Government Advocacy Project and is a member of the board of directors of the New Jersey Foundation for Open Government.
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- Written by: John Paff
In his February 7, 2014 letter, Somerset County Counsel William T. Cooper III defended the Somerset County Freeholder Board's decisions to conduct seven matters in nonpublic (i.e. closed or executive) session instead of publicly. Cooper's letter is on-line here and the minutes of the executive meeting in question are on-line here. (My letter of complaint about the executive session discussions is on-line here.)
With all due respect to Mr. Cooper, I believe that his position is flawed.
As just one example, the minutes of the January 14, 2014 closed meeting state:
SMOKING POLICY
Mike Amorosa addressed concerns and complaints received about employees utilizing e-cigarettes indoors. The Board endorsed the inclusion of e-cigarettes to the policy.
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- Written by: John Paff
January 31, 2014
Hon. Patrick Scaglione, Director, and members of the
Somerset County Board of Chosen Freeholders
(via e-mail only to
Dear Director Scaglione and Board members:
In response to my Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request, I obtained the minutes of five of the Board's recent nonpublic (executive or closed) meetings. For your ready reference, I have placed those minutes on-line here.
Several of the matter discussed do not appears to fall within any of the N.J.S.A. 10:4-12(b) exceptions. As you are aware, the Open Public Meetings Act requires all Board discussions to be held in public unless one or more of the N.J.S.A. 10:4-12(b) exceptions, construed strictly against closure, apply. Following is a list of some of the topics that I believe could have been discussed with the public in attendance.
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- Written by: John Paff
Donna Faulkenberry, President and members of the
Spotswood Board of Education
105 Summerhill Road
Spotswood, NJ 08884
(via e-mail only to Board Secretary Mark Resnick at
Dear President Faulkenberry:
While I appreciate the fact that the Board posts its nonpublic (i.e. closed or executive session) minutes on its web site (most public bodies do not), I think that the minutes themselves fall far short of the "reasonably comprehensible" standard required by N.J.S.A. 10:4-14. As an example, please see the Board's April 23, 2013 nonpublic meeting minutes here.
First, they are not even labeled "Minutes" but rather as a "Resolution for Executive Session."
Second, they contain some boilerplate language followed by the only substantive portion which reads, in its entirety, "The Board discussed a contractual matter." Do you think that the "reasonably comprehensible" language in N.J.S.A. 10:4-14 requires, at a minimum, the identities of the parties to the contract under discussion?
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- Written by: John Paff
On January 13, 2014, Clinton attorney Walter M. Luers filed an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) lawsuit on my behalf against the New Jersey Governor's Office. The complaint, letter brief and other papers filed in Paff v. Office of the Governor, Docket No. MER-L-66-14 are on-line here.
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- Written by: John Paff
Judge O'Connor significantly revises her "generator" decision
Judge O'Connor called both attorneys in Paff v. Warren County Prosecutor's Office today and held a Case Management Conference via telephone at 4 p.m. today (Monday, December 23, 2013). The judge's purpose in calling the conference was to modify her previous order so that the identities of the official(s) who misused the county-owned generators would also be redacted from the documents that will provided in the case.
O'Connor's December 18, 2013 order stated that the Prosecutor's office "shall redact from the documents the names of any person who provided a statement to [the Prosecutor's office], as well as his or her position of employment, birth date, home and cellular telephone numbers, home address, and any personal identifier."
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- Written by: John Paff
Mayor Carl Groon, and members of the
Wildwood Crest Borough Commission
via e-mail to
Dear Mayor Groon and Commissioners:
In response to a recent Open Public Records Act request, I received redacted minutes from the Board's November 18, 2013 nonpublic (i.e. executive or closed session). I have placed these minutes on-line here.
I invite your attention to the sentence within the minutes that states that "[d]iscussion was also had regarding the hiring of a special investigator." As you know, this special investigator was hired to investigate a police internal affairs matter. The rumors circulating throughout the Borough are that the investigation relates to a police employee who has earned the rank of lieutenant or higher. Regardless of the truth of these rumors, this is a matter of great public interest and it's very important that there is sufficient information available so that Borough voters and taxpayers, at least at some point in the future, can understand the nature of the investigation and draw their own conclusions as to whether the Borough's elected and appointed officials acted reasonably.
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- Written by: Webmaster
John Paff was interviewed on Channel 9's "Chasing New Jersey" news program regarding the lack of transparency at the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey. This aired last night.
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- Written by: Walter M. Luers, Esq.
by Linda Baum / edited by Walter Luers, esq.
New Jersey Foundation For Open Government
August 2013
New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act (OPRA), effective in July 2002, is one of the best tools the public has to obtain information about what government is doing.
OPRA requests must be in writing. While many governmental entities have a specific form for this purpose, you are not required to use it. In fact, legally you can send an email request, with the description of the records you are seeking in the body of the email itself. Importantly, the email must clearly state “OPRA request” in the email. Also, you should include your name, address, phone number and email address so the records custodian may contact you. (There is no legal requirement to identify yourself when making an OPRA request – the OPRA law allows you to submit a request anonymously.)
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- Written by: John Paff
09/07/13 Update: The case has been scheduled for a hearing before Hon. Mary C. Jacobson, A.J.S.C. in Trenton on Wednesday, October 30, 2013 at 11 a.m. The signed Order to Show Cause is on-line here.
When you see a police car protecting a construction site on a public roadway, the taxpayers are probably not paying that officer's salary. Instead, the construction or utility company pays the police agency for the officer's salary and for use of the police car and the agency in turn pays the salary over to the officer. This is known as "extra-duty" and can be a lucrative source of income for local police officers.
I requested to know the amount of "extra-duty" pay a particular Ewing Township (Mercer County) police officer received during 2012, but the Township denied my request. The Township's position is that "payment for voluntary, off-duty work paid by a third party does not involve the expenditure of public funds" and is not a public record.
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- Written by: John Paff
Following is my July 15, 2013 letter to the asking it to a) adopt my more precise and informative form of closed session resolution and b) to stop discussing general policy matters in closed session. Unfortunately, violations such as these are common among local governments.
I encourage readers to submit Open Public Records Act (OPRA) requests to their own town councils and/or school boards. Simply request "the resolutions, as required by N.J.S.A. 10:4-13, authorizing the three most recent closed or executive sessions held by [name of governing body]." If you receive resolutions that, like Winslow's, describe the closed session topics broadly and vaguely, you may want to modify the form of resolution I sent to Winslow for your town and/or school board and encourage them to adopt it.
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- Written by: Webmaster
A judge has ordered that a report on a Egg Harbor Township police officer found asleep at the wheel at a light in Northfield be made public.
John Paff, Chair of the NJ Libertarian Party Open Government Advocacy Project, tried to obtain the report in 2011 however Northfield refused to release the report. He filed suit to have the report released.
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- Written by: John Paff
In a twenty-three page opinion issued on June 25, 2013, Atlantic County Superior Court Assignment Judge Julio L. Mendez ruled that the public is allowed to see a report written by Egg Harbor Township Police Sergeant Michael Hughes soon after Northfield Police found an off-duty Egg Harbor Township officer named Jeffrey Lancaster asleep behind the wheel of his personal vehicle during the early morning hours of February 27, 2011. Judge Mendez's opinion and order are on-line here and background on the lawsuit is on-line here.
Judge Mendez found that since there was no internal affairs investigation pending at the time Hughes wrote his report, it was not subject to the Open Public Records Act (OPRA) exception that restricts access to records that "pertain to an investigation in progress." Judge Mendez, noting that police officers serve "in a position of trust" found that disclosure of the report "will only fortify the trust and credibility afforded to the Egg Harbor Township police department by its citizenry."
The court did allow certain "legitimately confidential information" to be redacted from Hughes' report and denied access to Lancaster's preliminary and final disciplinary records that arose from the incident.
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- Written by: John Paff
Today, June 21, 2013, the Appellate Division of the Superior Court affirmed a lower court's dismissal of Michael Taffaro's false arrest lawsuit against the Borough of Ridgefield and Borough Mayor Anthony A. Suarez. The court's opinion is on-line here.
According to the opinion, Taffaro, who claimed to have been put on Suarez's persona non grata list after having publicly criticized him during his mayoral campaign, had been convicted of fourth degree contempt,had been convicted of fourth degree contempt, a conviction that was later reversed by the New Jersey Supreme Court. But, before the Supreme Court's reversal of the conviction, Taffaro had submitted an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request form to the Borough Clerk that contained the standard language regarding the requestor's conviction status. On the form, Taffaro certified that he had not been convicted, even though the Supreme Court had yet to reverse his conviction.