Middletown: OPRA Request Forced Us To Share Residents' Emails

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — The Middletown Township administrator revealed Friday that the Twp. was forced to comply with an OPRA request to hand over its entire list of residents' email addresses. That email list was then used to send out a political attack email last week.

"If someone files an OPRA request for our list of subscribers for email blasts, etc. we must provide it and apparently that is what happened," said Middletown administrator Tony Mercantante this afternoon, when Patch asked him.

Many Middletown residents signed up with the Twp. to receive municipal news such as community fairs, road pavings and garbage pick-ups, under the cute headline "Middletown Minutes." However, at 10 a.m. last Saturday, an email blast was sent out attacking Sean Byrnes, a Democrat who is running to unseat Tony Perry on the Middletown Twp. Committee.

Many Middletown residents were appalled to see a non-partisan, municipal email list be used for campaigning. Now today, Mercantante said the Twp. was forced to hand over that list via an OPRA (Open Public Records Act) request.

"Now what someone does with that list is another matter, out of the Township’s control. Whether or not anyone committed an election law violation is not our call and not for a township to investigate," said Mercantante. "You should know that while overall OPRA is a good thing, it is very much abused. People, often times businesses, constantly use OPRA requests to obtain information and data that they then can use for personal gain."

It is not yet known who filed the OPRA request; it was filed anonymously.

Mecantante said he agreed that Middletown residents should not have their private email addresses vulnerable to OPRA, or campaigning. But there was very little, if anything, the Twp. could do, he said.

"While I agree with you wholeheartedly that Township email lists should not be available, they in fact are," Mercantante added. "In this case in fact, the County and its taxpayers even got hit with paying legal fees for not wanting to give out what should have been private information."

Essentially, Middletown's hands were tied.

The email was sent by a group called Residents Against Over Development and referenced the controversial Village 35 project, which it linked Byrnes to. As the Asbury Park Press (which first reported the story) pointed out, that type of political advertising is supposed to include a disclaimer — "paid for by ..." and no such wording appears. That could be a violation of NJ and federal election laws.

Perry is a Republican and extremely well-connected in Monmouth County GOP political circles: His father-in-law is former Middletown Committeeman, now Freeholder Gerry Scharfenberger and he used to be the chief of staff to now-retired state Sen. Joe Kyrillos.

When Patch contacted Perry on Friday afternoon, he said he received the email, too and that his campaign re-election team "is looking into it." Perry said he hires various political consultants to run his campaigns and he also said he thinks such email lists may be subject to OPRA requests. If you click through the email on “return to our website” it takes you to Perry's Twitter page.

"So in essence taxpayer money and resources are being used by private individuals and businesses for personal gain or profit and the law allows it, in fact mandates it," continued Mercantante. "There are a lot of things about OPRA that people are unaware of and that are total abuses of the intent, but no one ever wants to take on the issue and try to fix it via legislation, which is needed. They are afraid of being painted as 'anti-transparency.' In fact legislation now pending will make matters worse and even more ripe for abuse."

Photo of the Middletown Twp. building by Carly Baldwin/Patch