WOODCLIFF LAKE—An effort to review and reform the 20-plus-year-old Open Public Records Act (OPRA) initiated by a countywide municipalities organization was endorsed by the Woodcliff Lake Borough Council, 4-0, on May 16.
The resolution, No. 22-129 noted that the New Jersey OPRA law “can and must be improved upon to make it less onerous on municipalities and protect the safety and welfare of the public.”
Initially approved by the Bergen County League of Municipalities, which represents most Bergen County’s towns, the measure asks the Legislature to make a distinction between commercial entities using the OPRA law to obtain records and private individuals.
The resolution notes that OPRA requestors often “bombard municipalities with public records requests to the extent that in some instances, additional personnel are hired primarily to handle such requests,” the resolution states.
“We’re not saying that we don’t want OPRA,” said Borough Administrator Tom Padilla. “We’re just saying that it needs to be reevaluated.”
Padilla said they have three prior years of budgets and meetings on the borough website but if someone uses OPRA to request a public record, the records custodian (i.e. Borough Clerk Debbie Dakin) must collect the information and email it or provide it rather than just directing the requestor to a website, which unnecessarily uses up municipal staff time and resources.
Padilla said Borough Clerk Debbie Dakin gets “multiple” OPRA requests daily. By law, she must reply to each within seven calendar days.
Councilwoman Jennifer Margolis noted that some OPRA-able records are “personal information” such as private addresses and private emails, which may also create cyber-security issues for individuals whose digital records are released under OPRA.
He said OPRA requests might ask a municipality to provide the email addresses for residents receiving its newsletters. He said the borough “tried to fight” an OPRA request for addresses of licensed dog owners but that the courts ruled, in another similar case, that the town must provide the addresses.
“They’re using it (resident email lists) as a marketing tool and using the town to market their products,” Padilla said about commercial entities using OPRA.
The resolution notes that “over the years, court decisions have chipped away at the reasonable expectation of privacy provision of the law, thus allowing the law to be molded and wielded as a tool that severs any sensible balance of transparency.”
It continues, “And instead, now perpetuates rampant and dangerous degrees of for profit data-mining, unsolicited marketing and uncontrolled publications of records on internet search engines specifically designed to circumvent and bypass what few protective measures currently exist under OPRA, and all while allowing the requester to remain cloaked in anonymity, should they choose to exercise that option.”
The resolution notes an Assembly bill (No. 4894) was introduced in January 2019 to create an OPRA study commission but remains “negligently stagnant” until now in the Legislature.
The League of Municipalities resolution calls for 17 reforms, from immediate creation of an OPRA study commission and prohibiting OPRA requestors from remaining anonymous, to prohibiting commercial OPRA requests and exempting email addresses from OPRA.
Other revisions requested include exempting personal identifying information such as birth dates; exempting pet license information; exempting emergency notification information; and requiring that requestors maintain a New Jersey address.
Hoping to enhance transparency via the state Open Public Meetings Act law, Hillsdale Mayor John Ruocco has asked three 39th District Assembly and Senate leaders to draft legislation to include documents up for discussion as links on the online meeting agenda. No legislation has yet been proposed.