It seems it’s long overdue for residents of Atlantic Highlands to pay attention to what’s going on with their Mayor and Council and the business of the borough.
Not only does the borough attorney accept a document from a resident at a public meeting, but she apparently keeps it, and assures him she will look into it.
But where is the document now? As of last month, members of the governing body said none of them has seen the document. At the April 13 council meeting, two weeks after she received the document and promised to look into it, the borough attorney said she had not had a chance to review it yet.
The attorney then could not attend the April 26 council meeting; that meeting was changed last January to accommodate one member of council. That apparently conflicted with another commitment the attorney had on that Wednesday night. So there was another attorney from her firm, present to take her place, said she could not report anything about the document.
And this week, in response to an OPRA request from a local resident, the borough’s keeper of records responded.
“In response to your OPRA Request, dated April 28, 2023, the document you are requesting is not on file with the Borough, and therefore is not subject to OPRA. This fulfills your request.”
So where is the document? Who has seen it? Who is reviewing it? Six weeks after it was accepted by the borough attorney at a public meeting, the residents of Atlantic Highlands, including the resident who gave the document to the attorney, do not know what it is all about.
The matter started at the March 23 meeting of the borough council when the mayor or one of the governing body’s contractors, accepted two of three documents that were offered to them during the meeting, with the Mayor indicating she would accept the third after the meeting. The one not accepted concerned an undated letter the Superintendent of Schools had sent to the Commissioner of Education indicating she had the full authority of the council and other officials to send it. While council members first said they had not seen that letter either prior to the meeting, at least one council member later said he had seen it but did not read it completely.
Concerning the letter given to the attorney, Peg Schaeffer, resident Joshua Leinsdorf spoke during the public portion and presented to her, at the attorney’s request, the document he said was dated 1940 and was concerning a deed for property within the Municipal Yacht Harbor. Leinsdorf indicated the information he had from that document could have a serious impact on how the Harbor conducts business and has conducted it in the past.
It is that deed which was handed to the attorney and not read by the council that is still the subject under review by the attorney,
Yet there is no record of a reported deed presented in March to the borough attorney at a public meeting maintained on any file of official borough records. Or even a copy of it.
