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Good afternoon:

The County is inreceipt of your OPRA request for the following: “Copies
ofemail logs for Middlesex County Department of Corrections and Youth
ServicesWarden Mark Cranston, from January 1st, 2018 to August 31, 2020.”

 Please be advised thatfurther clarification is necessary in order to
respond to the above-referencedrecords request.

 Specifically, to conduct asearch of emails, the County requires (1) the
subject and/or content of theemail; (2) the identity of the sender and/or
recipient thereof; and (3) aspecific date or range of dates during which
the email(s) were transmitted.This criteria has been deemed necessary
under OPRA by the Government RecordsCouncil for a request for emails to be
valid. See Elcavage v. West MilfordTwp. (Passaic), GRC Complaint No.
2009-07 (April 2010).

The County cannot formulatethis criteria for you, as this could result in
an inaccurate production ofdocuments.  Based on your request, please
provide the search criterialisted above. 

 If you would like the Countyto proceed with your OPRA request, please
respond in writing within seven (7)days. If no response is received from
you, the County will consider this OPRArequest withdrawn.

 Sincerely,

Amy R. Petrocelli
Clerk of the Board

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Good afternoon:

Please be advised that the County is processing your request to locate
documents responsive to your OPRA request. Due to the extensive nature of
your request, additional time beyond the statutorily-allowed seven (7)
business days is required to process and locate responsive documents and
since your request seeks to include “subject” in the email logs, these
email logs must be reviewed for privilege and confidentiality. OPRA allows
custodians to seek extensions of time pursuant to N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5(i). 
Specifically, OPRA states that, “the requestor shall be advised by the
custodian when the record can be made available. If the record is not made
available by that time, access shall be deemed denied.” 

 Your request requires an extension of time until November 6, 2020. 

Further, OPRA allows public agencies to impose special service charges
whenever the nature, format, manner of collation, or volume of a
government record embodied in the form of printed matter to be inspected,
examined, or copied pursuant to this section is such that the record
cannot be reproduced by ordinary document copying equipment in ordinary
business size or when fulfilling a request requires an extraordinary
expenditure of time and effort. See N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5.c.  We will advise
you in writing beforehand if a special service charge is warranted to
conduct a privilege review of the pertinent documents. 

Sincerely,
 
Amy R. Petrocelli
Clerk of the Board

Attachments:
[1]cranston.csv
[2]cranston_EV.xlsx

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Good afternoon:
 
Please see the attached per your request.
 
Please note that emails where the subject revealed confidential personnel
matters have been removed from the e-mail logs.  The Open Public Records
Act provides that:  “personnel or pension records of any individual in the
possession of a public agency, including but not limited to records
relating to any grievance filed by or against an individual, shall not be
considered a government record and shall not be made available for public
access, except that an individual’s name, title, position, salary, payroll
record, length of service, date of separation and the reason therefore,
and the amount and type of pension received shall be a government
record…”  N.J.S.A. 47:1A-10.  Stated otherwise, personnel files are
presumed to be protected from disclosure unless they fall within the
narrow exceptions to the exemption set forth under N.J.S.A. 47:1A-10.
Kovalcik v. Somerset Cnty. Prosecutor’s Office, 206 N.J. 581, 594 (2011). 
In this case, the material referenced in the subject  of the email logs
pertaining to internal grievances and IA investigations is not one of the
listed exceptions to the personnel record exemption under OPRA.  Further,
under the Internal Affairs Policy & Procedures promulgated by the Attorney
General, Internal Affairs matters are exempt from disclosure. 
 
Sincerely,
 
Amy R. Petrocelli
Clerk of the Board

References

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