Spending
Dear Hillsdale 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 NOT use the requested government records for a commercial purpose.
I AM NOT seeking records in connection with a legal proceeding.
Records requested:
Copies of ALL invoices for all fire extinguisher, kitchen fire suppression and fire alarm services from 2020 to present
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,
Tony Michael
Please be advised that I will be out of the office March 30-April 6 and
will not have access to email during this time. If this is an urgent
matter, please contact the Borough directly at 201-666-4800. If this is an
OPRA request, please be notified that your response may be delayed by a
maximum of 14 days.
Good morning,
I am in receipt of your OPRA request for "ALL invoices for all fire extinguisher, kitchen fire suppression, and fire alarm services from 2020 to present."
Your request is respectfully denied as overly broad and unclear because it fails to identify specific, identifiable government records. Under OPRA, a custodian is required to search for records but is not required to perform research or manually analyze files to compile data. Identifying all invoices for specific services across several years without vendor names, account numbers, or specific identifiers would require me to manually review every financial record in the agency's possession to determine its relevance.
This position is supported by established New Jersey case law:
MAG Entm't, LLC v. Div. of ABC (2005): The court ruled that OPRA does not authorize "open-ended searches" or requests that require a custodian to "manually search through all of the agency's files, analyze, compile and collate" information.
Bent v. Stafford Police Dept. (2005): This case affirms that a request must be clear and specific enough to allow a custodian to locate records without exercising judgment or conducting research.
Donato v Township of Union (GRC 2005-182)- where the GRC ruled that a custodian is not required to research files to determine which records might be responsive toa broad or unclear request.
Additionally, under the June 2024 OPRA amendments, requests that require research are expressly defined as invalid.
Request for Clarification:
To assist me in fulfilling your request, please provide the specific vendor names or contract identifiers for these services. Once this clarification is received, the 7-business-day response time will begin anew.
Denise Kohan,
R.M.C., QPA, C.M.R.
Municipal Clerk/Registrar of Vital Statistics
Qualified Purchasing Agent
Borough of Hillsdale
380 Hillsdale Avenue
Hillsdale, NJ 07642
201-666-4800 ext. 1552
www.hillsdalenj.org
Good morning-
On April 7, 2026, our office requested clarification regarding your OPRA request in order to properly process and fulfill it. To date, we have not received a response.
Under the New Jersey Open Public Records Act (OPRA), requests must be sufficiently specific to allow the custodian to identify and locate the records sought. When clarification is requested and no response is received within the statutory time frame, the request cannot be processed further.
Accordingly, as more than seven (7) business days have passed without the required clarification, we are closing this OPRA request.
If you wish to proceed, please feel free to submit a new OPRA request with the necessary clarifications so that we may assist you.
Denise Kohan,
R.M.C., QPA, C.M.R.
Municipal Clerk/Registrar of Vital Statistics
Qualified Purchasing Agent
Borough of Hillsdale
380 Hillsdale Avenue
Hillsdale, NJ 07642
201-666-4800 ext. 1552
www.hillsdalenj.org