TRENTON, N.J. — A state appeals court ruled Wednesday that government agencies in New Jersey may deny access to public records by saying they can “neither confirm nor deny” their existence.
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An initial hearing will be held on September 28 in New Brunswick before Middlesex County Assignment Judge Travis L. Francis for a lawsuit alleging that the Spotswood Board of Education has violated the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA) and Open Public Records Act (OPRA).
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The New Jersey Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case brought by an open-government activist who contends that the public should be allowed to view electronic data and metadata kept by local government agencies.
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Union County Superior Court Judge James Hely issued an opinion on Monday, July 13 that the Summit Housing Authority failed to properly reply to an Open Public Records Act request for minutes of the non-public (executive or closed session) meetings of its Board of Commissioners.
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A judge in Atlantic County has just held that public agencies cannot sue records requestors for declarations that the records sought are not subject to the Open Public Records Act (OPRA). The court affirmed that only the requestor can sue under OPRA and awarded attorney’s fees to the defendant-requestor!
Click HERE to see the opinion and order in the case, Township of Hamilton v. Scheeler et al. Continue>>>
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From North Jersey: Fair Lawn – Reports by the borough of residents abusing Open Public Records Act (OPRA) requests and businesses using OPRA information for profit have prompted State Sen. Bob Gordon to sponsor a bill that would exempt certain personal information from the state’s open public records law.
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A few items selected from many of interest that we might not have drawn attention to earlier:
ACLU ready to challenge Clinton (Ia.) over records
CLINTON, Iowa — The Citizens for Open Government group has been denied its request for obtaining closed meeting records from the city of Clinton regarding the federal lawsuit over ambulance billings by the city.
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From lehighvalleylive.com:
Two Republican New Jersey lawmakers want to pull back the curtain on the state’s public records law by removing some provisions that exempt legislators.
Assemblyman John Amodeo and Assemblyman-elect Chris Brown plan to introduce in January a bill to allow the decade-old Open Public Records Act, known as OPRA, to apply to communications between legislators and other governmental agencies.
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