OPRA request for public information - Wall BOE to MCPO and MCPO to Wall BOE
Dear Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office,
May I please have a copy of the following under OPRA:
1) A copy of any correspondence Christine Steitz or anyone from the Wall BOE sent to the MCPO regarding the Central School Trailers and my correspondence and all of the attachments she sent with her e:mail or letter.
2) a copy of any correspondence Ms. Steitz received from the MCPO regarding the Central School Trailers in response to her letter or e:mail.
The time frame is August 20, 2024 - August 28, 2024.
Regards,
Betsy Cross
Good morning Ms. Cross,
I am just writing today to request clarification of your below-referenced records request.
Specifically, can you please advise whether by "correspondence" you mean "letter or email?" And also, can you please advise on what specific members of the Wall Board of Education you'd like a search to apply to? In the absence of such clarity, the request as presently worded would be overly broad, and thus invalid under OPRA.
The New Jersey Government Records Council (GRC) helpfully offers an example of a valid request of this nature:
Example of a valid request: "Any and all e-mails between Jane Doe and John Smith regarding the construction of the new high school from January 1, 2009 to February 28, 2009." (Source: https://www.nj.gov/grc/public/faqs/)
...as you can see, in this case, you have already provided a specific topic (Central School Trailers) and time frame (August 20-28, 2024); I would just need the type of correspondence and specific senders/receivers.
Thanks very much for your time and attention to this matter,
Best,
Mark Spivey
Public Information Officer
Public Information and Media Relations
Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office
132 Jerseyville Avenue
Freehold, NJ 07728
(732) 431-7160 Extension 3033
Website: mcponj.org
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Sent 10:31 AM 9-3-2024
Dear Mark Spivey,
In response to your reply of this am. I would like a copy of any letter, or email, or notes taken from any phone call "to" and "from" Wall BOE President Christine Steitz and the MCPO and "to" or "from" any other member of the Wall BOE or "Tracy Handerhan" or "Brian Smyth". The other 8 Wall BOE members are as follows so please include them in your search as well: Ralph Addonizio, Adam Nasr, Ken Wondrack, James Maliff, Mairin Barbiere, Thomas Buffa, Kathleen DiGiovanni, Pam Shimko.
Kindly listen to link from the Wall BOE meeting from a week ago today (on (8/27/2024) starting at the 2:30 minute mark where Ms. Steitz is discussing the MCPO correspondence shared with the Wall BOE. I did ask who wrote the letter from the MCPO not once but twice that evening (8/27/2024), but Ms. Steitz would not advise who the letter was signed by in the MCPO.
Christine Steitz mentions there is "more to come in September", but I am not sure if she is reply to your office or the Comptroller's Office.
Brian Smyth is the person sitting to the left of Ms. Steitz in this video from the 8/27/2024 BOE meeting. Mr. Smyth said during his deposition taken by the first injured party to sue in the trailers that he was NEVER interviewed by the MCPO as part of your investigation. Brian Smyth was the Business Administrator at the time of the purchase of the trailers and the BA responsible for the work on the trailers from the purchase to the demo. Wall received a tort notice on 8/30/2019 from the injured party. James Habel was the Superintendent at the time of the purchase who went to prison for official misconduct. It certainly seemed odd that your office would never interview BRIAN SMYTH as that was the first person mentioned who should have been interviewed as mentioned during our meeting with the MCPO in October of 2019 with myself and 3 other very concerned parents. Your office closed the investigation 13 months later on November 4, 2020, but we still have no idea if anyone was ever interviewed from the Wall BOE. The architect said he was also never interviewed by your office. The Wall BOE even demolished the Trailers in June of 2020 during the MCPO OPEN CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION and strangely that was never even an issue for your office in Barbara Suppa's letter. SPOILATION OF EVIDENCE was also never an issue for ANTHONY SCIARRILLO'S $115,000 so-called Investigative report funded by the Wall Taxpayers where Mr. Sciarrillo refused to sign his report, refused to put the report on his business letter or put his firms name anywhere in it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t0Y9ihp...
Yours sincerely,
Betsy Cross
Thank you for the clarification.
With regard to your request, please see the attached letter.
Best,
Mark Spivey
Public Information Officer
Public Information and Media Relations
Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office
132 Jerseyville Avenue
Freehold, NJ 07728
(732) 431-7160 Extension 3033
Website: mcponj.org
NOTICE OF CONFIDENTIALITY
This message, including any prior messages and attachments, may contain advisory, consultative and/or deliberative material, confidential information or privileged communications of the Office of the Monmouth County Prosecutor. Access to this message by anyone other than the sender and the intended recipient(s) is unauthorized. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, any disclosure, copying, distribution or action taken or not taken in reliance on it, without the expressed written consent of the Office of the Monmouth County Prosecutor, is prohibited. If you have received this message in error, you should not save, scan, transmit, print, use or disseminate this message or any information contained in this message in any way and you should promptly delete or destroy this message and all copies of it. Please notify the sender by return e-mail if you have received this message in error.
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