Mercer County Superior Court Judge Mary C. Jacobson ruled on July 12, 2016 that the Government Records Council’s (GRC) unapproved meeting minutes are exempt from disclosure because they are pre-decisional and deliberative.
The ruling agrees with the GRC’s decision in the case of Parave-Fogg. The Superior Court lawsuit was an attempt to have the Parave-Fogg decision overturned so that unapproved meeting minutes would be discloseable under OPRA. As NJFOG noted in its April 2016 post on this matter, the exemption often results in unreasonable and lengthy delays in public access to these records.
Read more:
New OPRA lawsuit takes aim at GRC’s wrongheaded Parave-Fogg decision
NJ Open Government Notes
by John Paff