Tag: OPRA

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Reader says So Voigt turned out to be a crackpot

mad hatter

So Voigt turned out to be a crackpot. We still got two very competent Council members and vanquished the previous Council majority. Big win for common sense. The Record and Ridgewood News are becoming more and more irrelevant every day. As are Mr. Halaby and the other special interests hanging on to the failed legacy of the prior regime. Please let’s just put a bullet in the head of Valley’s Master Plan amendment and let’s overturn the ridiculous high density housing debacle. Voigt is everything that we all hate about NJ politics. Shame on him for the campaign that he ran to get where he is.

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Reader says Funny how Voigt refers to “the mayor’s supporters.” All these people supported Voigt and the Mayor did, too

village Council Elections

Funny how Voigt refers to “the mayor’s supporters.” All these people supported Voigt and the Mayor did, too. She had his sign in her front yard and campaigned for him. Looks like a boatload of people got fooled by him. What a crummy person he turned out to be. So nasty, paranoid, and not doing a single thing he campaigned to do. He was dead set against the garage, now he pushes for it. he was dead set against the nastiness of Arnonsohn and company, now he personifies it. he was dead set against underhanded dealings, now he is in bed with the press. he was an advocate for the people, now he is vilifying the citizens. Wow

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Reader says obvious silly ploy of Aronsohn and morally corrupt Patsy’s

paul Aronsohn

file photo by Boyd Loving

This is such an obvious silly ploy of aronsohn and his political motives and morally corrupt Patsys. I don’t know why more people don’t see through this,
He made big promises and he didn’t deliver. He literally NEEDS to corrupt this current council and break it all apart to sneak his people back in in order to deliver on the bs promises he made about disabled housing and parking garages. Or his spiral ions go down the drain. What a snake. What a lair. And these food are falling for it and so are all of us! Voigt especially

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Email search exposes distrust among Ridgewood council members

mad hatter

Editors note  This article is clearly Aronsohn planted 

Mark Krulish , Staff Writer, @Mark_Krulish7:20 p.m. ET May 27, 2017

The release of Open Public Records Act requests submitted by two Ridgewood council members, targeting a third council member, have brought to the surface a level of distrust on the village’s dais.

Councilman Jeff Voigt, who has been ordered to turn over his email correspondence with a journalist and several Ridgewood residents, says he’s being harassed by Mayor Susan Knudsen and Deputy Mayor Michael Sedon, who filed the OPRA requests. Voigt, who has been critical of the mayor at times since taking office last July, called the requests “pure bullying” and “intimidation,” an effort to force him into silence.

https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/bergen/ridgewood/2017/05/27/email-search-exposes-distrust-among-ridgewood-council-members/343478001/

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Supreme Court: Bloomfield cameras exempt from OPRA

village council meeting assult

file photo Village Council Meeting altercation

 

Erin M Roll , NorthJersey5:27 p.m. EST November 29, 2016

A Bloomfield resident’s search for township security camera footage has encountered a roadblock at the state Supreme Court.

The court overturned a prior Appellate Division ruling that said that Patricia Gilleran had the right, under the state’s Open Public Records Act, to view footage taken by the security cameras on the exterior of the Municipal Building.

The court’s Nov. 22 decision ruled that the security footage was not open to general public access under the state’s public records laws.

https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/essex/bloomfield/2016/11/29/supreme-court-bloomfield-cameras-exempt-opra/94611110/?utm_campaign=Observer_NJ_Politics&utm_content=New%20Campaign&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=New%20Jersey%20Politics

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New Jersey Appeals Court Condones ‘Glomar Responses’ Under OPRA

village-hall-theridgewoodblog

By Donald Scarinci • 09/21/16 10:06am

A New Jersey appeals court recently held that public entities may decline to confirm or deny the existence of records responsive to a request under the Open Public Records Act (OPRA). While such responses have long been sanctioned under the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the decision in North Jersey Media Group, Inc. v. Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office is the first to hold that the “confirm nor deny” response is also proper under OPRA.

The History of “Glomar Responses”

The term “Glomar response” originates from Phillippi v. CIA, 546 F.2d 1009 (D.C. Cir. 1976). The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) responded to a FOIA request for records pertaining to the Hughes Glomar Explorer, an oceanic vessel publicly listed as a research ship privately owned by billionaire Howard Hughes. Media reports at the time maintained that the federal government was using the ship to salvage a sunken Russian submarine that was carrying nuclear missiles.

In response to a request by journalist Harriet Ann Phillippi regarding the government’s attempts to conceal the existence of the project, the CIA asserted, “in the interest of national security, involvement by the U.S. Government in the activities which are the subject matter of [the plaintiff’s] request can neither be confirmed nor denied.” The CIA further claimed that the “existence or nonexistence of the requested records was itself a classified fact exempt from disclosure under . . . FOIA.”

https://observer.com/2016/09/new-jersey-appeals-court-condones-glomar-responses-under-opra/?utm_content=New%20Campaign&utm_campaign=Observer_NJ_Politics&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=New%20Jersey%20Politics

 

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What investigation? N.J. court rules cops don’t even have to say if records exist

Ridgewood _police_theridgewoodblog

file photo by Boyd Loving

By S.P. Sullivan | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on August 31, 2016 at 5:33 PM, updated September 01, 2016 at 8:15 AM

TRENTON — A state appeals court ruled on Wednesday that government officials don’t necessarily have to acknowledge the existence of a record when refusing to release it.

The three-judge panel sided with prosecutors in Bergen County, who responded to a request from a news organization by saying they could “neither confirm nor deny” they had documents related to a possible criminal case.

The court agreed that in some cases, even acknowledging a record exists can divulge sensitive information. The so-called Glomar response, originally invoked by the federal government in a matter of national security, has been finding its way into state courts in recent years, a trend free press advocates have called troubling.

At issue in Wednesday’s decision was a request made by the Community News, a weekly newspaper in northern New Jersey, for records held by the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office regarding an individual who had been accused of sexual abuse but never criminally charged.

https://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/08/prosecutors_can_neither_confirm_nor_deny_nj_court.html?utm_content=New%20Campaign&utm_campaign=Observer_NJ_Politics&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=New%20Jersey%20Politics#incart_river_home

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Ridgewood League of Women Voters hosts panel on good government

Hair Broadway

Hair Broadway

Ridgewood League of Women Voters hosts panel on good government

FEBRUARY 27, 2015    LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2015, 12:31 AM
BY MARK KRULISH
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS

Good government was the topic of conversation for an audience made up of community leaders and residents at a forum hosted by the Ridgewood League of Women Voters on Wednesday, Feb. 18.

Members of the New Jersey Foundation for Open Government (NJFOG) were invited to present and educate the public on the Sunshine Law, also known as the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA) and the Open Public Records Act (OPRA), and aid in an open dialogue about transparency in government.

“It’s the mandate of the Ridgewood League of Women Voters to educate the public about government,” said Crystal Matsibekker, president of the Ridgewood League of Women Voters. “And it is in this positive spirit of education that the Ridgewood League of Women Voters is hosting this event. Rather than discussing specific incidents or people or groups, we hope that tonight’s meeting would inspire a positive discussion about the future of our village.”

Walter Luers, the president of NJFOG, served as the keynote speaker for the forum. Luers also works as an attorney who often takes cases related to OPRA and OPMA. He presented the public with a basic background on the two laws and the ways he would like to see them amended.

Luers described OPRA as the best way to request copies of public documents from public agencies. In order to utilize it, a written request pursuant to OPRA must be prepared and sent to the public agency’s records custodian. If someone other than the records custodian receives the request, that person has an obligation to identify the records custodian to the requestor or forward the request.

https://www.northjersey.com/community-news/clubs-and-service-organizations/forum-puts-focus-on-good-government-1.1279175