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OPRA and You

by: deciminyan

Thu Aug 11, 2011 at 05:58:00 PM EDT

Every governor that I have worked for - from Brendan Byrne to Chris Christie - has preached openness in government.

That statement was uttered by a state employee at the Fifth Annual OPRA Seminar for the Public today in Trenton. Yet, as we have seen recently, governors, state, county, and municipal employees, are not always willing to proactively share public information with their stakeholders.

New Jersey's Open Public Records Act (OPRA) has been on the books for a decade and is a tool to help citizens obtain information on everything from the governor's stealth helicopter trips to lists of dog owners for use by the SPCA in investigating animal abuse. Today's seminar provided the audience - attorneys, state and local employees, gadflies, and others - with the background they need to use this powerful tool effectively.

deciminyan :: OPRA and You

For someone like me, who is neither an attorney nor a professional journalist, the presentations were valuable (and are available on the Government Records Council web site). I won't attempt to rehash that material in this diary - the information on the web site is pretty extensive. Suffice it to say, the law is geared toward the requestor and in spirit, at least, requires the information to be provided in a timely fashion unless it meets certain exception criteria. But, as my friend at Pick's Place can tell you, requests must be specific and should be targeted toward precise documents or data.

Both presenters (Catherine Starghill, Executive Director of the Government Records Council, and Karen Perry, a Records Analyst at the Division of Archives and Records Management) were excellent and clearly understood their respective jobs and responsibilities. Starghill discussed the process for submitting a request, the responsibilities of the agency, and what is and isn't covered by OPRA. Perry's presentation was geared specifically toward the people who maintain these records, as she talked about retention time frames and a state system that local governments can use to facilitate retrieval of data to comply with OPRA requests.

A democracy can work only when its citizens get involved. And citizen involvement works best when it is fact-based (tell that to the Tea Party!) Effective use of OPRA can help us get to the facts.

I have not (yet) submitted an OPRA request, so I can't say how the process works in practice. But this forum is a good one to share experience and information about the OPRA process. If you've used OPRA successfully, or have had an OPRA request denied, share your experience here so we can all learn and help make our state and local government more effective in working for us.

Tags: OPRA, Chris Christie, Catherine Starghill, Karen Perry, Division of Archives and Records Management, Government Records Council, SPCA, Pick's Place, (All Tags)

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OPRA and You | 12 comments

My OPRA story (4.00 / 1)

You can read my story, and the accompanying comments, HERE.

In a nutshell, I made the fatal error of using the word "information" which resulted in automatic rejection, even though my request was very simple, precise, and straightforward.

However, as Rosi correctly pointed out, the law is used to request documents, not information.

I spoke to a Christie staffer who told me that, due to the high volume of OPRA requests, the process is to first find a reason to reject any requests before responding by providing any ~~information~~ documents.

Blog: Pick's Place

by: jeffpickens @ Thu Aug 11, 2011 at 23:08:39 PM UTC

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That's fascinating. (4.00 / 1)

Sounds like what they're telling you is they're less interested in fairly providing documents that the public is entitled to see and more interested in finding a reason not to provide documents the public has a right to see.

Some of you may be interested in NJFOG - that's the New Jersey Foundation for Open Government.

It's not a particularly snappy signature, but here's what I think we need in the next NJ Democratic State Chair.

by: Rosi Efthim @ Thu Aug 11, 2011 at 23:20:58 PM UTC

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Yes (0.00 / 0)

Although I wouldn't go so far as to call it "fascinating". It's just what I would expect from this crowd (but you know that).

Blog: Pick's Place

by: jeffpickens @ Fri Aug 12, 2011 at 00:46:29 AM UTC

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Jeff... (4.00 / 1)

After a one day seminar, I'm not an expert, but here's my take on the letter from Raymond Brandes. In he states "...this office has reviewed its records in response to the second portion of your request." (emphasis mine).

Now, look at slide 17 from the OPRA Training, which states "If an officer or employee of a public agency receives an OPRA request, they must forward the request to the records custodian or direct the requestor to the records custodian pursuant to N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5.h."

Based on this, one of the following two assertions must be true. Either

a) The records exist, but not in the office from which you requested the data from. If that's the case, Mr. Brandes's office is required by law to direct you to the proper office where the records do exist, or

b) The record doesn't exist and the Christie administration is so fiscally irresponsible that they don't keep basic records on taxpayer expenditures.

Which is it?

Blog: http://www.deciminyan.org

by: deciminyan @ Fri Aug 12, 2011 at 00:35:41 AM UTC

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b.) (0.00 / 0)

"That search has not identified any documents responsive to your request"

Blog: Pick's Place

by: jeffpickens @ Fri Aug 12, 2011 at 00:49:09 AM UTC

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I'm working on new OPRA & OPMA (open public meetings act) (4.00 / 1)

bills which will be ready for introduction within the next 2 to 3 weeks. It has been a long labor to update these two important laws. We've gotten input from interested parties and have worked closely with the NJ Press Association. They will take into account much of the technology advancements which didn't exist when the laws were first written.

by: Senator Loretta Weinberg @ Fri Aug 12, 2011 at 01:54:59 AM UTC

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Sen. Weinberg (0.00 / 0)

Are email communications between electeds included in the OPRA overhaul?

It's not a particularly snappy signature, but here's what I think we need in the next NJ Democratic State Chair.

by: Rosi Efthim @ Fri Aug 12, 2011 at 04:21:42 AM UTC

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email communications will be included (0.00 / 0)

and I believe there's been a recent court decision clarifying this.

by: Senator Loretta Weinberg @ Sat Aug 13, 2011 at 03:48:48 AM UTC

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Email and OPRA (0.00 / 0)

Senator Weinberg,

From the training, I learned that email is treated like any other document, and is subject to OPRA requests. However, in some cases, public officials have used their personal email accounts to conduct government business, either because they were trying to shield themselves from OPRA, or in the case of some very small municipalities they did not have government email.

I would suggest that any enhancement to OPRA should require every official to segregate government email from personal email, and if a municipality did not have an email system (hard to believe in this day and age of free cloud-based email systems), that they would be required to use the county or state system. There needs to be specific and robust legislation requiring backup and retrieval of government e-mail that is consistent with the state's records retention laws.

I'm glad you're working on this, and I look forward to hearing about how you and your colleagues are making transparency more transparent.

Blog: http://www.deciminyan.org

by: deciminyan @ Sat Aug 13, 2011 at 12:31:28 PM UTC

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Senator Weinberg (0.00 / 0)

I hope the new bill closes the "information" loophole.

Blog: Pick's Place

by: jeffpickens @ Fri Aug 12, 2011 at 10:15:51 AM UTC

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that's exactly what we're trying to do. (0.00 / 0)

by: Senator Loretta Weinberg @ Sat Aug 13, 2011 at 03:49:35 AM UTC

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Worth the Effort (0.00 / 0)

CWA Local 1038 was curious as to how many political appointees the Christie Administration placed in various agencies, what positions they occupied and how much they were being compensated.

As can be seen here, there is a payoff for effort.

If we don't stand together, we fall alone
That didn't last long.

by: Couch Potato Politics @ Fri Aug 12, 2011 at 12:36:08 PM UTC

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OPRA and You | 12 comments