Randolph Township, Morris County: Promoting compliance with Internal Affairs Reporting.
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 Randolph Police Department's website at https://www.randolphnj.org/police/intern... 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 In such a case, please consider this OPRA (Open Public Records Act) request withdrawn.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 Randolph 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 Randolph 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 Randolph 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 Randolph 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 Randolph 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 Randolph Police Department is unwilling to upload the identified reports, please provide them to me in response to this request.
RECORDS REQUESTED:
2022 IA Summary Report
COMMENTS: 2022 IA Summary not in the form of Appendix K.
--end of request
I am currently out of the office and will return on May 30, 2023. For
immediate assistance and OPRA submissions please contact Janet Pollio at
[email address] or Mariam Sabri at msabri@randolphnj,org.
Donna Luciani
Township Clerk
Mr. Paff,
Attached is the Appendix 'K' you are referring to for your records. For reference I also attached the IAPPs Sec 9.11.1 & 9.11.2 for your reference. As you will see in the highlighted section that I "may" use Appendix 'K' to satisfy the public reporting requirement, not that I "shall". To make things more streamlined and uniform, with specific regards to Appendix 'L' and the Major Discipline Reporting Form, I have swapped out the current 2022 Internal Affairs Summary Report for the actual 2022 Appendix 'K" IA Summary Report.
As per your OPRA request, I believe that supplying you with a copy as well as my willingness to swap out my current form for the actual Appendix 'K' form has fulfilled your request. If for any reason it has not, please contact me so I may assist you further in fulfilling said request.
CHIEF WILL HARZULA
RANDOLPH TWP. POLICE DEPT.
502 MILLBROOK AVE
RANDOLPH, NJ 07869
W# 973.989.7014
Dear Chief Harzula:
Thank you for swapping out the 2022 IA Summary report. This closes out this OPRA request.
Also, the version of the IAPP you provided was from 2020. The new version, released in November 2022 (see link below), changed Sec. 9.11.1 to make the Appendix K mandatory, not optional.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hc42PpC...
Thank you.
John Paff
Mr. Paff,
You are correct, my apologies, I clicked on the wrong website. The NJ.gov site still has the 2020 IAPP published, while the NJAOG.gov site has the 2022 IAPP published.
CHIEF WILL HARZULA
RANDOLPH TWP. POLICE DEPT.
502 MILLBROOK AVE
RANDOLPH, NJ 07869
W# 973.989.7014