Dear Mr. Toby:

The Morris County Sheriff’s Office (“Sheriff’s Office”) records custodian
received your Open Public Records Act (“OPRA”) request on February 14,
2024.  The seven business day deadline to respond to your request is
February 26, 2024. As such, the Sheriff’s Office is timely responding to
your request in accordance with New Jersey law.

Your request seeks the following records:

Dear Morris County Sheriff's Office,

We hope all is well we are reaching out to see please provide a list of
all persons who are owed surplus funds from the sheriif sales dating from
2019-2024

Yours faithfully,

Jacob toby

OPRA requests may not be a broad generic description of documents that
require the custodian to search the agency’s files and “analyze, compile,
and collate” the requested information. Id.; see also Lagerkvist v. Office
of Governor of State, 443 N.J. Super. 230, 237 (App. Div. 2015) (holding
that OPRA does not convert a custodian into a researcher, which would have
been the effect of the request). Here, your requests are clearly deficient
as they purportedly seek all records pertaining to a list of persons owed
surplus funds, and purports to require the Sheriff’s Office records
custodian to conduct research with respect to same. See Parreott v. Asbury
Park School District, GRC Complaint Nos. 2016-20 & 2016-39 (Sept. 2017)
(holding that the portion of the request seeking “all relevant documents”
was invalid because it sought a class of various records and would have
required the records custodian to conduct research in order to locate
responsive records); see also Burke v. Ocean Cty., 2013 WL 6169154 (App.
Div. 2013) (holding that an OPRA request is not the equivalent of lawsuit
discovery).

Notwithstanding the invalidity of your request, in the interest of
transparency, the Morris County Sheriff's Office is not in possession of
any responsive records as this is a record not regularly maintained by the
Office. 

Your OPRA request is now deemed answered and closed. Thank you for your
attention to this matter.

Very truly yours,

Mark Chiarolanza

Confidential Assistant – Public Information

BWCs – OPRA Management

Class II Special Law Enforcement Officer

MCSO Det. Capt. – ret.

Morris County Sheriff's Office

P.O. Box 900

Morristown, New Jersey [1]07963-0900

Office: [2]973.285.6819

Fax: [3]973.285.6609

Email: [4][email address]

MCSO web: [5]www.sheriff.morriscountynj.gov

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