Dear East Windsor Township,

Please accept this electronic request for public records made under OPRA and the common law right of access. I am not required to fill out an official form or use a particular software platform to submit my request per NJSA 47:1A-5(f), which states that an email from a requestor including all of the information required on the adopted form shall suffice in place of a completed form as a valid government record request.

I HAVE NOT been convicted of any indictable offense under the laws of New Jersey, any other state, or the United States.

I WILL NOT use the requested government records for a commercial purpose.

I AM NOT seeking records in connection with a legal proceeding.

Records requested:
Please provide a complete copy of the application and all supporting documents, exhibits, reports, and other files submitted by the applicant seeking preliminary and final site plan approval with bulk variances for the following project pending before the East Windsor Planning Board - EWT PB25-006 (QTS Investment Properties Princeton LLC, 159 Princeton-Hightstown Rd - Block 63, Lot 6, 6.01, 8, 9, 10.03, 10.04, 51)

My preferred delivery method for response(s) to this request is by E-mail as attachments. Please confirm you have received this request and let us know if you need to make other arrangements to provide the requested records. If you are not the custodian of records, please forward my request to that person and provide their email address to me for future reference.

Yours faithfully,

Food & Water Watch

Dear East Windsor Township,

Please confirm you received our request. We have not received any response from East Windsor Twp. as of yet.

Yours faithfully,

Food & Water Watch

Dear Ms. Quigley,

Thank you for your reply. Respectfully, given the context that I will explain below, this is not an acceptable delay for our OPRA request for a single planning application. We were told there is a Planning Board hearing scheduled for February 23 and we need time to review the application in advance of the hearing.

I reached out to the Planning Department on January 13 and asked for a copy of the application. We were told that they were very busy but that they would get us the application soon. Nothing came so I followed up with another call on January 20. The person I spoke with was apologetic, and they once again promised to provide the records by the end of the week (which would have been the January 23). However, we have not received any further communication from the Planning Department, so we filed our February 2 OPRA request as a last resort. We are now less than two weeks away from the hearing and have not received a single document.

Yours sincerely,

Food & Water Watch

Dear Ms. Quigley,

On February 19 at approximately 3:30pm, I stopped by the municipal building to review the site plan application that we requested. Anastasia was very helpful and allowed me to examine the documents in the conference room. I spent upwards of an hour reviewing the plans, not nearly enough time to read the application in its entirety. After returning the application documents, I suggested that in the future the Township require applicants to submit their site plan applications in an electronic format. Anastasia informed me that, in fact, she had also received electronic versions of those same documents via a link, but that she was unable to get the link to work on any computer other than her own assigned computer. She also indicated that she had extra paper copies of the plan, and I could take some of the documents home with me if I wanted to. However, I declined this offer as I was under the impression that your office would be sending the plan documents to us electronically the following day, per the extension you had requested to provide a response to our pending OPRA request.

However, the following day, you responded to our OPRA request with the following: "Due to the size of the files you have requested, which include documents measuring larger than 11"x17", I am unable to scan and email them to you per your request. However, the records responsive to your request have been gathered and are available for review at the East Windsor Township Municipal Building anytime Monday through Friday, 8:30 AM - 4:30 PM. Please let me know when you would like to come in to view the files."

To be clear, the vast majority of the pages contained in this site plan application are on 8.5"x11" paper and while I don't want you or your staff to waste your time scanning them, I'm quite sure that it's entirely possible for those records to be scanned and emailed with the equipment you already have.

I would respectfully suggest that, if Anastasia is able to download the electronic versions of the site plan application documents, it would then be quite easy to simply use an electronic file transfer service to send those same digital files to us in a way that would completely and totally fulfill our request swiftly.

There are several free options for transferring large electronic files, such as Google Drive and WeTransfer. com, both of which I have experience using to successfully send and receive large files that are too big to email. If you would like to attempt to use one of these services to transfer the files, kindly direct them to the following address: [email address]. This is likely the easiest way to for the Township to fulfill our request.

However, if for any reason that doesn't work, or you don't wish to try it, another alternative is to copy the electronic files onto a USB "flash drive" (a/k/a "thumb drive). In 2025, I was able to obtain records from the Township using this method. If you do not have a USB flash drive to spare, I would be happy to provide one.

Finally, as a last resort, if you do not wish to try any of the above methods to expeditiously complete the request using modern technology, we would accept a complete copy of the site plan application on paper.

We need a complete copy of the application for our records, and cannot constrain ourselves to only being able to view the documents on-site during business hours. We are more than willing to work with you on this, assuming you can provide the responsive records in their entirety before the end of this week. As you may be aware, the site plan is currently slated for a public hearing and perhaps a final vote on Monday, March 9.

Hopefully, in the near future, the administration can begin providing access to such records on-demand using the Township website. Currently, there is remarkably little information available on the website about the Planning Board and the applications that come before it. By adding more information to the website, such as site plan applications that applicants have provided electronically, it would obviate the need for requests like the one we filed in connection with this important matter.

Please let us know how you would like to proceed with fulfilling our request for the records, either:
1) use a file transfer service such as Google Drive or WeTransfer.com to provide the requested records; or
2) provide the requested records on a USB flash drive, which we can pick up during business hours; or
3) provide the requested records on paper

Thank you kindly. And please feel free to call me anytime at 732-993-9697 if you wish to discuss.

Yours sincerely,

Charlie Kratovil
Food & Water Watch

Dear Allison Quigley,

Thanks, much appreciated. I'll try to make it there before the close of business today.

Yours sincerely,

Food & Water Watch