Ev crashes
Dear Maywood Borough,
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-6(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:
I would like to receive any accident reports, incident reports, aided reports, operations reports, internal affairs records, vehicle reports, investigation reports, citations, summonses issued, charge sheets, disposition of charges, court records, legal actions, lawsuits filed, settlement agreements, judgements, CAD / dispatcher / police journal entry records, ambulance reports, patient care reports, fire department response reports, sobriety test results, total station diagrams, accident reconstruction diagrams and reports, 911 tapes, any dispatch calls, images, recordings, video recordings, surveillance video, dashboard camera video, body worn camera video of the crash itself or the driver or any other persons being interviewed by the police, and email or other written communications
relating to any accident or incident involving a police vehicle, fire vehicle, ambulance, paramedic vehicles, supervisor vehicle, emergency response vehicles, first responder, police officer, EMT, paramedic, firefighter, code enforcement officer, law enforcement officer, REGARDLESS OF PAY OR VOLUNTEER STATUS OR IF THE CRASH WAS WHILE RESPONDING TO EMERGENCY, NOT DURING AN EMERGENCY RESPONSE, “ON DUTY”, OR “OFF DUTY”, or wherein the box stating “Resp to Emergency” or “Responding to Emergency” is checked off on an accident or crash investigation report, and for the original situation or emergency that resulted in the dispatching of the resources and personnell in the first place that are in your possession
from January 1, 2012 until the December 31, 2023.
My preferred delivery method for response(s) to this request is by E-mail as attachments. Please confirm you have received this request. 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,
mountaindew lightning
We are in receipt of your OPRA request regarding EV Crashes sent on
10/4/24. Our Counsel has asked if you can please confirm if the name
Mountaindew Lightning is your official legal business name or will you
remain an anonymous name?
Thank you,
Stefani
Best Regards,
Stefani Lindenau
Deputy Clerk
Borough of Maywood
15 Park Avenue, 3^rd Fl., Maywood, NJ 07607
Ph: 201-845-2900 x. 200
Office Hours: Monday thru Thursday 8:30 am – 6:00 pm
Friday – Closed
Dear Stefani Lindenau,
i am using a pseudonym to exercise my right to anonymity.
Yours sincerely,
mountaindew lightning
Dear Requestor,
Please be advised that the Borough is denying your OPRA Request on the
grounds that your request fails to identify specific government records
sought and would require the Custodian to conduct research in order to
determine the records which may be responsive to the request, the request
is overly broad and is invalid under OPRA pursuant to MAG Entertainment,
LLC v. Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, 375 N.J. Super. 534, (App.
Div. 2005).
The Court in MAG held that:
While OPRA provides an alternative means of access to government documents
not otherwise exempted from its reach, it is not intended as a research
tool litigants may use to force government officials to identify and
siphon useful information. Rather, OPRA simply operates to make
identifiable government records “readily accessible for inspection,
copying, or examination.” N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1. MAG Entm’t, LLC v. Div. of
Alcoholic Beverage Control, 375 N.J. Super. 534, 546 (App. Div. 2005)
The Court in MAG reasoned that:
Most significantly, the request failed to identify with any specificity or
particularity the governmental records sought. MAG provided neither names
nor any identifiers other than a broad generic description of a brand or
type of case prosecuted by the agency in the past. Such an open-ended
demand required the 2 Annette L. Steinhardt v. Bernardsville Police
Department (Somerset), 2015-375 – Findings and Recommendations of the
Executive Director Division's records custodian to manually search through
all of the agency's files, analyze, compile and collate the information
contained therein, and identify for MAG the cases relative to its
selective enforcement defense in the OAL litigation. Further, once the
cases were identified, the records custodian would then be required to
evaluate, sort out, and determine the documents to be produced and those
otherwise exempted. Id. at 549.
The Court in MAG further held that “[u]nder OPRA, agencies are required to
disclose only ‘identifiable’ government records not otherwise exempt . . .
In short, OPRA does not countenance open-ended searches of an agency's
files.” Id. at 549. Bent v. Stafford Police Dep’t, 381 N.J. Super. 30, 37
(App. Div. 2005); Schuler v. Borough of Bloomsbury, GRC Complaint No.
2007-151 (February 2009). Additionally, in N.J. Builders Ass’n v. N.J.
Council on Affordable Hous., 390 N.J. Super. 166, 177 (App. Div. 2007),
the court held that a requestor is required to “submit the request with
information that is essential to permit the custodian to comply with its
obligations.”
Your request does not supply enough information to identify a specific
government record. The Borough does not utilize a database that is able to
use the search terms you identified in your OPRA Request. The search terms
you identified are compatible with the database: LawSoft. The Borough does
not use LawSoft, and as such, has no way of searching the terms you
identified in your OPRA request. The Custodian was able to pull a list of
all motor vehicle reports/incident reports from 2015 to Present, so you
can see the searchable categories yourself. Please see the PDF attached.
If you are able to supply the Borough with more specific information, such
as a particular date, person’s name, or incident report number, then the
Borough will respond to that additional OPRA request and comply with its
necessary obligations under OPRA.
Best Regards,
Stefani Lindenau
Deputy Clerk
Borough of Maywood
15 Park Avenue, 3^rd Fl., Maywood, NJ 07607
Ph: 201-845-2900 x. 200
Office Hours: Monday thru Thursday 8:30 am – 6:00 pm
Friday – Closed