Dear Mr. Paff:

The Borough of Madison received your Open Public Records Act (“OPRA”) and
common law request (“Request”) on May 30, 2023. The seven business day
deadline to respond to your Request is June 8, 2023. As such, the Borough
is timely responding to your Request in accordance with New Jersey law.

Your Request seeks the following:

2020 IA Summary Report

2021 IA Summary Report

2022 IA Summary Report

2020 Major Discipline Report

2021 Major Discipline Report

2022 Major Discipline Report

Your Request alleged that the above Reports were not fully compliant with
the Internal Affairs Policy & Procedures (“IAPP”). Following the
submission of your Request, the Borough uploaded revised versions of the
Reports to its website, which are available at the following link:

https://www.rosenet.org/606/Internal-Aff...

Each of the Reports are now fully compliant with the IAPP. Please note
that the 2020 IA Summary Report is comprised of the standardized Morris
County report, which several Morris County law enforcement agencies are
utilizing to satisfy the IAPP requirement. Thus, your Request has been
fulfilled in its entirety. Your Request is now deemed answered and closed.

Very truly yours,

Elizabeth Osborne
Borough Clerk
Borough of Madison
HDM 50 Kings Road
Madison, NJ 07940
973-593-3041

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From: John Paff <[OPRA #44290 email]>
Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2023 3:12 PM
To: Elizabeth Osborne <[email address]>
Subject: OPRA request - Madison Borough, Morris County: Promoting
compliance with Internal Affairs Reporting.
 
CAUTION: This email has originated from outside of the organization. Do
not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and
know the content is safe.

Please accept this as my request for government records under both OPRA
and the common law right of access.  Thank you very much for your
commitment to transparent government.

BACKGROUND:

Please note that I am making this request based on my belief that certain
mandatory reports are either missing or inadequate on the Madison Police
Department's website at [1]https://www.rosenet.org/606/Internal-Aff... or
may be located elsewhere on a different webpage or website. If the records
I am referring to are indeed available elsewhere, or if the police
department has recently updated its website and the reports can be found
in a place I haven't checked, kindly inform me of the URL where the
"missing" files can be accessed. In such a case, please consider this OPRA
(Open Public Records Act) request withdrawn.

To provide some context, according to Internal Affairs Policy & Procedures
(IAPP) Section 9.11.1, the Madison Police Department is required to file
annual reports with the Morris County Prosecutor and publish them on its
webpage. These reports should summarize the types of complaints received
and their dispositions in a statistical format. The department has been
obligated to publish these reports on its webpage since at least 2020,
even though the IAPP has undergone amendments. Notably, as of 2022, the
summary reports must adhere to the format specified in the Annual Internal
Affairs Summary provided in Appendix K. Prior to 2022, the use of Appendix
K was optional.

Furthermore, as background information, IAPP Section 9.11.2 states that
the Madison Police Department must file and publish annual reports on its
website by January 31st, documenting instances of "major discipline"
imposed during the previous year. Similar to the previous requirement, the
department has been responsible for publishing these major discipline
reports online in some form and submitting them to the Morris County
Prosecutor since at least 2020. Starting with the 2022 report, these
reports are required to follow the format outlined in Appendix L.

Today, I visited the aforementioned webpage to access the Department's
Internal Affairs reports, which are mandated to be available on the
webpage according to IAPP Section 9.11.1 and 9.11.2. However, I discovered
that the reports I am requesting below are either missing or inadequate.
It is my belief that the Madison Police Department is in violation of IAPP
Section 9.11.1 and 9.11.2 for not having appropriate versions of these
reports on its website.  (Inadequacies are noted in the comments.)

I want to clarify that the purpose of this request is not to obtain the
following records for myself. Instead, it is intended to kindly prompt the
Madison Police Department to upload the missing or inadequate reports to
its website, thereby ensuring compliance with the IAPP and making these
important reports accessible to the public. THEREFORE, THE Madison POLICE
DEPARTMENT CAN FULFILL THIS REQUEST BY UPLOADING THE REQUESTED REPORTS TO
ITS WEBPAGE OR WEBSITE AND NOTIFYING ME, IN RESPONSE TO THIS OPRA REQUEST,
THAT IT HAS DONE SO. If, for any reason, the Madison Police Department is
unwilling to upload the identified reports, please provide them to me in
response to this request.

RECORDS REQUESTED:

2020 IA Summary Report
2021 IA Summary Report
2022 IA Summary Report
2020 Major Discipline Report
2021 Major Discipline Report
2022 Major Discipline Report

COMMENTS: None.

--end of request

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References

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