Sunshine Law Violation

Dear Editor,

Many readers are aware of legislation called the “Sunshine Laws” which refer to the Open Public Meetings Act and the Open Public Records Act. Intended to pull up the shades shrouding government activities, the laws were intended to enable the citizenry to learn how laws are formulated and how their hard earned tax dollars are spent. Unfortunately sometimes jumping thru hoops is necessary to obtain even the simplest bits of information as some bodies have been known to be reluctant to allow a light to shine on their activities. This is not to say that they are deliberately hiding anything but rather are cavalier regarding record keeping and who deserves to learn in an expeditious manner what is going on in town hall or at the county seat.

Stated in N.J. S.A. – 10:4-14 Minutes of meetings availability to public reads as follows: Each public body shall keep reasonably comprehensive minutes of all its meetings showing the time and place, the members present, the subjects considered, the actions taken, the vote of each member and any other information required to be shown in the minutes by law, which shall be “promptly” available to the public.

The statute does not define exactly the length of time that “promptly” denotes. The courts have stated that it generally requires that the minutes be made available as soon after the meeting that it takes to prepare them, even though perhaps they have not yet been approved. If they are released prior to approval it should be noted on the top that they are subject to change or modification by the public body at the next meeting.

Back on July 26, 2018 I lamented on our Facebook page that the Board of Chosen Freeholders had not posted their meeting minutes on their website since March of 2017, a period of 1-1/2years. Then lo and behold minutes from 3/2/2017 thru 12/21/2017 were approved by the board at the August 8 meeting and promptly posted to the county website. That left 7 months of minutes which were still not posted. Digging back a little further I discovered that as far back as October 2016 through Dec. 2016 no minutes were ever offered for approval by the board.

The situation was even worse than I thought: approval of minutes not listed on meeting agendas, meeting minutes not approved and minutes not made public/posted. These omissions suggest that the board has not been transparent in their activities for an extended period of time. It should be noted that frequently items are added to a meeting when not appearing on an agenda.

At the Freeholder meeting this week on 10/11 they finally approved the minutes from January 2018 thru May 2018. Still not approved or posted are those of this past June thru the present. I made an inquiry during the public portion of the meeting as to why this situation was allowed to occur and the response from the Chairman was that the issue was addressed. I pushed further pointing out that this was a violation of the Sunshine Laws and that a complaint could be filed but I decided to make an inquiry at the meeting instead. I stated that it was not acceptable and again asked what happened. More fancy foot work telling me that it was addressed and the rest would be approved at the next meeting and then posted. Immediately following the meeting I was approached by both the County Manager and the Clerk of the Board who assured me that the situation was being handled and an OPRA request for minutes I had submitted along with a few documents would be filled ASAP, I also received a follow-up phone call and email from the Clerk the next day.

Who let this very sloppy housekeeping slip by? I sat and looked at the board marveling that this situation was overlooked for almost 2 years. How many people were asleep at the switch? Was it the Board of Chosen Freeholders, County Manager, Clerk of the Board, Board Counsel, the clerical staff who copy and distribute the agendas at the meetings? This record keeping mess begs the question of what other procedural requirements have put the county administration and its residents dangerously close to a litigious situation. The Sunshine Laws have been enacted for a reason and should never be taken lightly by those in positions of governmental responsibility this sort of careless is not acceptable.

Please visit the facebook page of Quattrocchi, Sarno and Kane @UCNJGOP2018 and vote Republican on November 6.

Sincerely,

Patricia Quattrocchi, Clark

GOP Candidate for UC Freeholder