Board agrees to keep more detailed minutes
Gov't watchdog found its minutes read like 'a table of contents'
BY MICHAEL ACKER
Staff Writer

SAYREVILLE - The Board of Education pledged to include more details in its closed-session minutes after an open government advocate threatened it with a lawsuit recently.

John Paff, chairman of the Libertarian Party of Central New Jersey's Open Government Task Force, has for the past three years been checking on local government agencies to ensure that they comply with state laws on open public meetings and records.

He said he chose the Sayreville Board of Education at random in November and made a records request, but did not get a response. He followed up more recently and found what he felt was a violation of state law due to a lack of details included in the minutes of the board's closed session meetings.

Paff informed the board that he had drafted a lawsuit and would be submitting it if he did not hear back from the board in a timely fashion.

The board discussed the matter in closed session last week, and board President Michael Macagnone later told the Suburban that more details will now be included in the closed session meeting minutes. He said it was an administrative oversight.

"Basically, [Paff] had come to us concerned on the clarity of our closed meeting minutes," Macagnone said. "He felt that they needed to be more detailed, and we agreed, and from now on we are going to do that."

The board attorney, he said, spoke with Paff last week.

"He's a fair guy," Macagnone said of Paff. "He's a watchdog, obviously, and we need those kinds of people."

It remains to be seen how the board intends to include more details in its minutes, Paff said, but he is pleased to hear that the board has pledged to do so.

"That is all I really wanted," Paff said. "I don't want [this] to cost the taxpayers. The people of Sayreville have enough of a tax burden, but I almost feel like I have to do this to get [officials'] attention."

Several other boards and government agencies have been unwilling to change their ways when Paff has visited their town, and in those cases he has pursued litigation. In most cases, he has won or "settled favorably" in court. Last year, Paff filed a lawsuit against the Monroe Township Board of Education, and a judge ruled that the board was not specific enough when informing the public of what it would be discussing in closed session.

Since the ruling in the Monroe case, the Sayreville school board has provided more details on its closed session discussions at public meetings. But Paff said that the lack of detail in the board's minutes can make it difficult for voters to know where their elected representatives stand on important issues.

Most boards that struggle with the Open Public Meetings Act law keep detailed minutes but redact too much of the text, Paff said. In the case of Sayreville, they weren't even writing the redactable text.

"It was more like a table of contents," Paff said of the board's closed session minutes. … "It's not supposed to be a verbatim transcript, but the person should get an idea of what the board decided to do and why they did it."

Paff cited 10 exhibits in the draft lawsuit against the board. They included a resolution that authorized the board to go into closed session on April 10 and another exhibit with the minutes of that session.

"The resolution is proper, because it gives the public a general idea of what topics are going to be privately discussed," Paff said. "… but the minutes of the meeting ought to lay out the elements of the discussion on that topic in some detail, so that the public can understand what was said. The Sayreville board's minutes simply repeat the topics that were listed in the resolution."

Paff cited Jefferson Township, Morris County, as an example of a municipality with detailed minutes on the content of closed session conversations. He noted that the governing body can redact information that they think should not be disclosed by drawing a black line over it and releasing the remainder.

"Compare Jefferson's closed session minutes to those of the Sayreville board," Paff said, "and I think you'll see that I have a pretty good case that Sayreville's are not 'reasonably comprehensible' as required by law."