OPRA, the New Jersey state Right to Know Law, was designed by the state legislature to ensure the public gets all the facts they have the right to know from official documents, records and reports of every elected body in the school districts, municipalities, counties and state.
It’s a great step and a mighty effort to give the people their rights. But it still isn’t enough when public entities, or their attorneys or other professionals, really go out of their way to hide things.
In dealing with information from four different municipalities in the past year, there have been so many instances of these bodies withholding, hiding, or making it very difficult to get the facts. I have found filthy and sneaky means of keeping the people from knowing the truth, the whole truth, and nothing about the truth, about so many things. So far, of the four towns where I have attempted to learn information I am entitled to learn, Highlands, Atlantic Highlands, Oceanport and Sea Bright, Sea Bright is the only one where I have not found any attempts to keep me from knowing what’s going on. But then, I haven’t tried to get any information from any Sea Bright elected body yet.
In Atlantic Highlands, where the borough clerk is highly professional and efficient, there is never any problem in getting what you ask for. In some instances, the answer comes within the hour, with further information that an OPRA wasn’t even necessary to get it.
It was either the governing body, or its attorney, who made the decision to name that ordinance Redevelopment Plan but never saying it was the Mother Theresa School property. They did this at the introduction of the ordinance and the innocuous name would not have awakened anyone to the fact it was all about the property the people have been saying for three years they want for senior citizen housing.
It was only because local resident Mark Fisher keeps his eye on everything governmental and is so astute at keeping the people aware of what the powers that be should actually be keeping the people informed about, that it was made visible to the average citizen. What’s worse, neither the owners of the property, nor their attorney in negotiations with the borough for sale of that property were advised before it happened that there was a plan afoot to change the use of that property even before the sale is completed. The attorney was ZOOM present at the meeting and said it is the first he’s heard of it. Just like everybody else.
Until Mark Fisher got the governing body to make it clear. WOW.
In Highlands, the approach is just as seemingly underhanded but in a different way. In trying to get some information on how the new borough hall cost has risen by millions since it was first introduced, wrong information was forwarded under an OPRA request. A second request brought some information, but not all of it as requested. Still the clerk closed the OPRA as if it were a fait accompli. It was not. So there was yet another attempt to get information I’m entitled to receive. How did that go? Still did not get it, instead, I got an insulting written message from the clerk saying attend a Council Meeting. Knowing full well that due to a disability, I can not
WOW!
And how can I forget that ‘e-mail friendship’ that was attempted to be formed by a lawyer in the firm that’s being paid by the Oceanport Board of Education to protect all their thoughts and deeds? That was back a year ago or so, when Highlands, Atlantic Highland and Sea Bright were talking about the regionalization plans for the school districts.
The Oceanport school board attorney wasn’t openly involved yet, nor did she tell me that she was an attorney and her name had not come out at all in the regionalization discussions. Of course, I could have searched for it, but why would I? This was simply discussions between municipal bodies on the studies they had paid for to see whether regionalization was a good idea. Heck, Oceanport had not even asked a single question about any of it.
Yet I, a senior citizen who just likes to write and has spent a lifetime trying hard to keeping the public informed, received a chummy e-mail from an attorney in that law firm, asking for some information, saying she saw me at meetings, read my blog, and wanted to chat about something. But she never once mentioned she works for the lady who is representing Oceanport and opposing anything the other towns were proposing.
An attorney who wanted information about a deal that involved an elected board her company represented. But with all her legal background, she never thought it was important enough to share that information before asking questions of a private citizen rather than the governing bodies.
WOW!
So in the end, what does it all say? Does it give you a warm cozy feeling that you can trust your elected officials? Does it look like the people who have the right to know get that right easily? Does it look like we need more Mark Fishers attending more meetings and asking more questions?
More importantly, does it make you wonder why so many elected officials really want to keep things under cover? Does it make you wonder whether there might be some chicanery going on in some places?
Does it make you want to get involved and ask more questions?
I’m also fed up with
