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I'm happy to report the New Jersey public records enforcement arm, the Government Records Council, agreed with me, somewhat, in a complaint I had made against Warren County Community College.
A little more than a year ago, I was a scrappy Express-Times reporter covering northwest New Jersey. I mostly reported on county government but I was lucky enough to get our local community college as part of my beat. To say the least, I got some great stories out that place.
For reasons I will not discuss here out of libel concerns, there was a ton of suspicion behind the scenes -- in the newsroom and in the community -- about a building the school bought for a satellite campus in Phillipsburg.
After the sale was complete I made a public records request for closed-session meeting minutes of the school's board. Unfortunately, whenever the 445 Marshall Street building came up the rest of the sentence was blacked out. The college claimed it was "attorney-client privilage" that kept me from seeing what was written.
So, I filed a complaint.
I contended that the sale had already taken place so the college had no reason to block out discussions it had about its purchase. To bolster my point, I also threw in a bunch of complaints about how the college had clearly avoided protocol when it handled my request.
I contended that the sale had already taken place so the college had no reason to block out discussions it had about its purchase. To bolster my point, I also threw in a bunch of complaints about how the college had clearly avoided protocol when it handled my request.
The GRC decided this summer the college's response to my request was "legally insufficient" because the college's custodian, Dennis Florentine, failed to respond in writing to all the items in my request. Also, it said the college had limited my access to information by demanding I fill out its official request form.
When the council reviewed the unredacted records I asked for, they found it was not direct communication between a lawyer and a client. But, it did contain a "summary" of advice from a lawyer so they were still allowed to redact it because it still fell under the privilege clause.
The council said Florentine did not have a "positive element of conscious wrongdoing or was intentional and deliberate." Translation: His response violated the law a little bit but he didn't mean to do it.
You can read the council's entire report below.
That's it for now. I promise to get back to local stuff later in the week, including a request I got back from the city of Monterey (Hint: It has to do with taxes).
Photo courtesy of Warren County Community College
