Leave it to the City of Gloucester City to upset OPRA activists across the state of New Jersey. Gloucester City Acting Clerk Kathy Jentsch issued a notice that her office will only accept two OPRA requests per day. Someone contacted Sunshine meeting activist John Paff who wrote his attorney, Walter Luers about her restrictions. Luers contacted the Executive Director of the Government Records Council to rule on this matter immediately.

Executive Director of the Government Records Council.

Ms. Starghill:

Please see the attached communication, immediately below, which I believe is self-explanatory. I am also attaching a jpg file of what was posted in the blog below. Before this Acting Clerk\’s \”policy\” causes a raft of lawsuits or GRC complaints (or both), would the GRC (consistent with its statutory duty to educate Records Custodians found in N.J.S.A. 47:1A-7(b)) communicate to this Clerk that she cannot arbitrarily change the dates on which OPRA requests are received? I suppose, that at the very least, the Clerk should be requesting consent for extensions of time to respond to OPRA requests, instead of engaging in the fiction of \”deeming\” requests to be received on arbitrary dates in the future. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Walter Luers, Esquire