Dear Ms. Tracy:

Please accept this as my follow up request for government records under both OPRA and the common law right of access. Please send all responses and responsive records to me via e-mail to [email address]. Thank you very much for your commitment to transparent government.

BACKGROUND:

I am in receipt of the Township's February 1, 2023 response to my January 26, 2023 Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request. In that response, I learned that the minutes for the July 27, 2022 executive session are not available to me because they have yet to be approved by the governing body.

You are correct that minutes, for public or nonpublic meetings, are not disclosable under OPRA unless and until they are approved by the governing body. Libertarians for Transparent Government v. Government Records Council, 453 N.J.Super. 83, (A.D.2018), certification denied 233 N.J. 484. However, apart from OPRA, minutes of all meeting, including nonpublic meetings, are required to be made "promptly available to the public to the extent that making such matters public shall not be inconsistent with [N.J.S.A. 10:4-12]" by the Open Public Meetings Act, N.J.S.A. 10:4-14.

The Township's is withholding minutes from a meeting that occurred more than six months ago. This does not meet the "promptly available" mandate of the Open Public Meetings Act.

In order to see whether this is a one-off or recurring problem, I downloaded the minutes of every Township Council public meeting held in 2021 and 2022 and combined them into one searchable PDF file. From searching on the word "executive" I found that, apart from the one held on July 27, 2022, the Township Council met in executive session twelve times on the dates set forth below. I also searched on the term "Approval of Minutes" and could not find any instances when executive session minutes were approved. All that I could find approval for were regular and workshop meetings.

While not conclusive, this leads me to suspect that, at least for 2021 and 2022, the Township Council meets in closed session but then never subsequently approves the minutes for any of those closed meetings. Such would keep those minutes exempt from disclosure until the Council approves them. If my suspicion is correct (and I hope that it is not), you will respond to paragraph 1 of my request by advising me that all those minutes are still in draft form and not disclosable in whole or part.

RECORDS REQUESTED:

1. Minutes from the Township Council's executive sessions held on the following dates: February 10, 2021; April 14, 2021; April 28, 2021; May 12, 2021; May 26, 2021; June 9, 2021; July 14, 2021; October 27, 2021; January 12, 2022; April 27, 2022; June 22, 2022 and December 14, 2022.

2. The closed session resolutions that authorized the Township Council's executive sessions held on the following dates: February 10, 2021; April 14, 2021; April 28, 2021; May 12, 2021; May 26, 2021; June 9, 2021; July 14, 2021; October 27, 2021; January 12, 2022; April 27, 2022; June 22, 2022 and December 14, 2022.

3. Only if no documents are responsive to #1 above, then I would like the minutes of the most recent Township Council executive session that can be disclosed in whole or part.