Almost every district provides a meeting agenda
on-line prior to board meetings. Lodi
doesn’t. I submitted the following OPRA
request two weeks in advance just so the public can see what will be voted on
at the June 24th meeting:
This was the email response I received today from Mr.
Capizzi:
On Wed, Jun 10,
2015 at 02:35 PM, Marc Capizzi wrote:
Mr. Curioni, as you have indicated in
the attached OPRA Request dated June 9, 2015, the documents you have requested
are not currently available. Therefore,
your request will be reviewed once the documents become available to the public
beginning Thursday June 25, 2015. In accordance with a recommendation received
from the Lodi Board of Education's Attorney, the documents are exempt from
disclosure prior to the meeting since they are considered "pre-decisional
advisory materials". They will become public after the Board has taken
action, at which time all non-exempt documents can be provided.
Regards,
Marc A. Capizzi
Board Secretary/Business Administrator
Lodi Board of Education
8 Hunter Street
P.O. Box 815
Lodi, NJ 07675
973-778-4920
(w)
973-778-1175
(f)
marc.capizzi@lodi.k12.nj.us
This was my email response citing the Midland Park “attachment”
decision once again:
Dear Mr. Capizzi,
I am aware that the agenda is not yet available. I submitted the OPRA
request two weeks in advance so the public will have an opportunity to view the
agenda prior to the meeting, not after. Unlike other districts, Lodi does
not post their agenda on-line prior to meetings or even at the meetings.
This is why I am submitting an OPRA request for the agenda.
In a Record article titled: "Judge rules against Midland Park school
board in attachments lawsuit", the first line reads: "A Superior
Court judge has ruled that the K-12 Board of Education must make attachments to
its agendas available to the public prior to meetings."
Another paragraph reads: "These attachments are already produced in
electronic form for the board members and are necessary for the public to
understand the agenda," Doyne's opinion states. "The public
cannot be 'overloaded' with information concerning the workings of their
governmental and municipal entities."
I am only requesting what Superior Court Judge Peter Doyne already
decided.
Here is a link to the article:
http://www.northjersey.com/news/judge-rules-against-midland-park-school-board-in-attachments-lawsuit-1.714573
Ryan