HCSO Professional Agitator's List -- Documents and Procedures
| Submitted | Oct. 28, 2021 |
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Communications
From: Colin Mahns
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the New Jersey Open Public Records Act, I hereby request the following records:
Any and all documents pertaining to a "professional agitator's list", either created by or purchased by the Hudson County Sheriff's Office, including the names of individuals, groups, and organizations monitored for by the Hudson County Sherrif's Office in said documents, along with the Hudson County Sheriff's Office's procedures around such a document including but not limited to when it is utilized in the course of civil or criminal complaints the Sherrif's Office is involved in like arrests, booking, or surveillance activities.
This document was brought up by Sheriff Schillari in the June 24th 2021 hearing in the ongoing DEGISE v. TORRES et. al lawsuit along with it being mentioned in the Defendants' Summation (Docket Number HUD-C-179-20) published on October 1st, 2021. According to this Summation and Testimony, Sherrif Schillari "ordered HCSO officers to collect protestors’ names" as "[h]e thought collecting the names would be 'helpful' to check them against a list of professional agitators". As this now is mentioned in the public record, I am requesting a copy from your office to be provided to myself.
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.
In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 7 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Colin Mahns
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following New Jersey Open Public Records Act request, copied below, and originally submitted on Oct. 28, 2021. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Hudson County Sheriff's Department
Good Afternoon Requester:
There are no records responsive to your Request. Sincerely, R. Taino. OPRA REP.
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From: Colin Mahns
I would like to appeal the response from "R. Taino" on November 16th, 2021. Sheriff Schillari himself had stated during the June 24th 2021 hearing during this trial that such a list existed, and this is now in the public record. I would like another search to be done for these documents. They may be referred internally by a different name but the Sheriff referred to this list as such.
Colin Mahns
From: Hudson County Sheriff's Department
Good morning,
Thank you for contacting the Government Records Council (“GRC”). The information provided by the GRC is guidance and does not constitute legal advice or a final decision of the GRC regarding whether a particular record is exempt from disclosure or not since the provisions of the Open Public Records Act ("OPRA") are applied to the specific facts of the request and/or complaint. Specifically, the GRC adjudicates denial of access complaints filed against state and local government records custodians.
The GRC first notes that OPRA is one means by which an individual can gain access to records in the State of New Jersey (informal, common law or discovery are some other methods). Thus, it is not the only method an individual may use when seeking information from New Jersey public agencies. Further, the requestor is the only individual capable of invoking OPRA either by submitting the his/her request on the agency’s official OPRA request form or by citing to OPRA in an equivalent writing. If an individual chooses to invoke OPRA in a request, then the statutory provisions will apply. However, some agencies have adopted policies requiring an individual to submit an OPRA request for records. Such a policy is at the agency’s prerogative and not statutorily required by OPRA, nor a GRC directive. Based on the foregoing, it is never ”necessary” for anyone to file an OPRA request to obtain any type of government record (unless agency policy dictates such).
Regarding your inquiry, you may wish to explore any avenue for curing the alleged issue referred to in your e-mail. This could include informally contacting the agency to cure any disagreement over disclosure (which you appear to have done below), submitting additional requests, or going through other available request avenues (informal requests, common law, discovery, subpoenas, etc.). Those avenues may also include engaging the judicial records request process.
Ultimately, if you believe you are unlawfully denied access to government records, you may file an action in Superior Court and pay the court filing fee or file a denial of access complaint with our agency (the Government Records Council). Please note that filing in court may result in your complaint being resolved more quickly than filing with the GRC. Additionally, the court can assess your common law right of access whereas the GRC cannot. Should you choose to file a complaint in Superior Court, you must contact the Court Clerk for the county in which you plan to file. Should you choose to file a complaint with the GRC, you must download a Denial of Access Complaint form from our website (http://www.nj.gov/grc/register/), fill it out and send it to our agency.
All Denial of Access Complaints must be submitted to the following:
Government Records Council
101 South Broad Street
PO Box 819
Trenton NJ 08625-0819
or
(609) 633-6337 Fax
or
Government.Records@dca.nj.gov<mailto:Government.Records@dca.nj.gov>
Sincerely,
Frank F. Caruso
Government Records Council
Executive Director
Tel: (609) 292-6830 | Fax: (609) 633-6337
http://www.state.nj.us/grc/
_____________________________________________________
This correspondence contains advisory, consultative and deliberative
material and is intended solely for the person(s) shown as recipient(s).