
Mr. Morgan,
I read with interest your reply, and while your volunteer service is to be commended and appreciated, I believe, that based on your own words, you simply do not understand the purpose or value of the state’s Open Meeting Laws, why they even exist and to be frank you seem to thumb your nose at them.
In addition, your representation of the DANI lawsuit is factually incorrect, perhaps understandably influenced because Mr. Dani, regularly exerts his legal rights to speak and address questions to the board at public meetings, that you [in your own words] refer to as “harassment”.
I’ll explain further, any person who works for a company, is counseled, and in many cases mandated not to use their work email for personal (non-work related) communications. So, to use a colloquialism, we all know not to mix ‘business with pleasure’, when it comes to our electronic communications. It’s really just common sense and a bad practice, and very often it’s a mandatory policy that employees are required to follow, and we may even get fired if we make this violation at work.
You, on the other hand, by your own admission, believe that it’s perfectly OK to discuss board business using personal email accounts, thereby mixing business with pleasure. This is exactly why in a regular job, you may get fired and contrary to what you say, this is in-fact, the definition of circumventing Open Meeting Laws. The fact that this information can later be requested by an OPRA Records Request is not a nonsensical rationale for using personal email accounts for board business, especially when you have a business email for board business at your fingertips.
The lack of understanding of this very simple fact, is not a recognition of malfeasance or nefarious behavior as you suggest is the reason behind the lawsuit, but it’s a simple declaration that you do not understand Open Meeting Laws, why they exist and why they are critical to board governance, and public trust.
How a tenured board member of 8 years, can be so deficient in this basic board governance understanding can’t be understated.
Also, your suggestion that DANI is costing tax payers money is misleading, you know full well that the board has oversight, responsibility and voting authority to approve the use the school funding, and the board elected to use tax payers money on a legal defense which in hindsight was not necessary, as you lost.
Note that in many cases, boards members are sanctioned individually and personally with a financial penalty in matters such as these, and in most instances the amounts are nominal, and are meant to teach board members a lesson and to convey the seriousness of adhering to a state’s open meeting laws. In addition your board’s members should be aware that if your D&O insurer reads your post, they would most likely drop your insurance since you have conveyed that you find it perfectly acceptable to conduct board business outside of the public purview using your private personal email accounts. This would leave the board exposed to represent themselves in any future legal matters.
As I read through the legal filings, I would note that the matter has nothing to do with nefarious behavior on the part of the board, or malfeasance, as you see to suggest, from the onset it’s been a simple matter of adhering to the law, and being transparent in board business, ensuring public trust.
In closing, your representation is misleading, and it’s astounding that you would insist that using personal emails for board business is fine, because it’s just simply not the case (a lack of transparency in board business leads to a lack of the public trust) and for this reason you are just wrong.
Mr. Dani’s has not exerted a negative influence as you stated, he has simply asked the board to be transparent in their business dealings, that’s really all there is to it.
The board choose to litigate and use school funds to argue to the contrary.
You lost.
Now, as a normal course of business are required to pay the other sides reasonable legal fees.
Your letter convey’s two strong points, one is good old fashioned ‘sour grades’, but number two is what really matter’s most, you by your own admission, do not understand (or maybe you do, and you disagree), open meeting laws, and the larger purpose they serve in serving the public.
Hey, pretty good letter, great points are made, specific concessions too where possible to show that you’re concerned, as you should be, about assuming too much (such as surmising what’s gong on in another’s mind or heart) and thus potentially giving unnecessary offense. No need to provoke your interlocutor into an emotion-laden fight when your noble goal lies elsewhere and could be tarnished or placed in jeopardy by distracting contretemps.
Hilary server 2020.
I don’t know much about the lawsuit, but familiar with the good governance concepts from a private sector. Assuming all “Interested” parties present their spin on what transpired, here’s 1 thing I focus on. What is the cost of the lawsuit to Ridgewood taxpayer? Divide that by Ridgewood school budget. My impression is that we’re talking about a small price to pay for transparency into a 100+ million puzzle. I could be wrong, but this seems like a BAU cost to run an effective BOE.
very well written.. this isn’t the first time the board of ed has been found guilty of violating the open public meetings laws (sunshine laws). Hopefully one day they will learn to follow the law…
The Aronsohn regime normalized the kind of hubris shown by Mr. Morgan. Laws and rules are for others but don’t apply to very important people like me.
Voigt has also circumnavigated OPRA. Morgan and Voigt are both going out of office with a giant stinking fart.
Agree with the observation that it is standard practice in the private sector that business and personal communication must be kept separate. Ever day I start my computer, I must click on a box that says I agree my computer and the use of company resources is for business purposes only. It is absolutely prohibited to forward business emails and documents to personal email addresses – grounds for firing, it is a matter of IT security. From an IT security standpoint, personal emails bring added risk. How would BOE like to pay $500K in bitcoin to some dude in Estonia who hits the District up with ransomware, to get confidential student records back?
I think there is a larger issue here. Who in the Village is responsible for IT Risk and Compliance – across all boards and entities? Are their published policies and audit reports that evidence to show they are being followed?
As the other poster pointed out, it’s a very different and dangerous IT world out there. The taxpayers have the right to know that the Village’s data is secure and accessible.