Per the article below, the Brick Board of Education recently stopped providing hyperlinks to documents with its public meeting agenda, a move that contradicts a campaign promise of greater transparency. The Board quotes the Appellate Division’s 2015 ruling in Opderbeck v. Midland Park Board of Education, in which the Court ruled the OPMA does not require the provision of supplementary materials with a public body’s meeting agenda. In its opinion, however, the Court noted the relative ease with which public bodies could provide the supplemental material in this digital age, and called on the Legislature to modernize the Meetings Act. Transparency advocate and NJFOG officer John Paff is quoted in the article. He notes that while no requirement exists to provide the meeting documents, it is also not unlawful at all. He says that disclosure should be the rule to allow for cogent public comments, with suppression only in limited cases “where a real and present danger exists in premature disclosure.”
Brick Shorebeat
In the Dark: Furor Over Brick School Board Keeping Documents From Public
by Daniel Nee
December 23, 2016