Dear South River Borough,

Please accept this electronic request for public records made under OPRA and the common law right of access. I am not required to fill out an official form or use a particular software platform to submit my request per NJSA 47:1A-6(f), which states that an email from a requestor including all of the information required on the adopted form shall suffice in place of a completed form as a valid government record request.

I HAVE NOT been convicted of any indictable offense under the laws of New Jersey, any other state, or the United States.

I WILL use the requested government records for a commercial purpose. (Real Estate)

I AM NOT seeking records in connection with a legal proceeding.

Records requested: Code Violation List Request for 07/30/2025 to 08/14/2025. I kindly request a list of all UNRESOLVED or OPEN code violations (please do not include closed violations) for all properties in the city during this time period, specifically related to property maintenance, structural issues, tall grass, lead hazard, and weeds. Please include descriptions of the violations, property addresses, and violation dates. I also prefer for the document to be sent here in OPRA not in my email (sometimes it does not appear in my inbox) and I am specifically requesting that the data be provided in Excel spreadsheet format (.xlsx). Thank you so much.

My preferred delivery method for response(s) to this request is by E-mail as attachments. Please confirm you have received this request. If you are not the custodian of records, please forward my request to that person and provide their email address to me for future reference.

Yours faithfully,

Mariya

Dear Alyssa Hager,

Please aggregate any and all code violations per property and send that over to me. If code violations are stored by property, please review all properties with an open code violation and send that data in excel format.

Regards,

Ali

Dear Alyssa Hager,

Thats fine. Please include all open code violations from 07/30/25 - 09/05/25, since you are requesting an extension

Yours sincerely,

Mariya

Dear Alyssa Hager,

Thank you for your response and for providing the records. However, the file was provided in PDF format, while my request specifically asked for the records in Excel spreadsheet format (.xlsx).

The reason for this request is that Excel allows the data to be sorted, filtered, and analyzed, which cannot be done with the PDF version. Pursuant to OPRA, records should be provided “in the medium requested” if the agency maintains them in that format or can reasonably convert them.

I kindly ask that the records be re-sent in Excel (.xlsx) format as originally requested.

Yours sincerely,
Mariya

Dear Alyssa,

Thank you for your response. I understand that the Borough does not maintain the records in Excel format. However, pursuant to OPRA (N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5(d)), when a custodian of records maintains government records in electronic format, the records must be provided “in the medium requested” if they are readily convertible.

If the Borough maintains the data in a database or electronic system (e.g., permitting, code enforcement, or municipal management software), then exporting to Excel or CSV is a reasonable conversion that OPRA requires. If this is not possible, I kindly ask that you confirm in writing that the Borough does not have the capability to reasonably convert these records into Excel or CSV format.

Thank you again for your time and assistance.

Yours sincerely,
Mariya