After shutting down comments on social media, stopping the practice of reading parent emails, changing the budget review process to a shorter time frame (and not providing the full budget for public review), attempting to silence BOE members on social media and trying to set a precedent that BOE Members providing an opinion on meeting minutes is unethical, the District is attempting to use shame as a mechanism to close out the only legally protected mechanism parents have to get information.
They are now publicly publishing the names of Berkeley Heights Residents OPRA requests on the District Website. OPRA is a law that gives residents the right to get information from their government.
https://www.bhpsnj.org/Page/12607
Over 4 months, the District received 75 (i think) OPRA requests; that averages to about 18 OPRA requests a month.
Eighteen of these 75 requests were from BHCW or me, mainly in connection to articles we were writing or issues we were looking into for the benefit of the public good OR on behalf of other residents concerned the District would retaliate- which they appear to be doing.
Districts who do this also publish the responses to the requests and the materials provided. Not our District – they just publish names.
Let’s take a look at the nine requests I submitted for my work on BHCW and what they connect to:
(1) A request for video footage in connection to allegations Ms. Penna was electioneering in front of Woodruff. The OPRA request was driven by two residents reporting Ms. Penna was electioneering at Woodruff and Ms. Stanley’s statement that she was there conducting BOE business. This is a serious allegation of a public official and merits investigation. That being said, The District denied this request- no hours of work on the part of the District. Apparently, Ms. Penna can hang out in a school, but I can’t watch the video of her hanging out at the school
(2) An OPRA request requesting copies of the taxpayer-funded political hit job against Ms. Akiri given to the public due to OPRA requests. The District likely violated a host of ethical standards in that public fiasco. Afterward, community members provided details of the complaint they should not have known to BHCW – because how could they know? – the SEC rules are that complaints are confidential until the SEC decides on it.
No documents provided.
(3) The email with a picture of Ric Flair was mine, though it went through BHCW and was the result of the Business Administrator ascribing my name to an OPRA request BHCW submitted that did not have my name associated with it. This email aimed to get potential information on the exchange between Ms. Akiri, Ms. Kot, and Dr. Varley to understand why this happened-they were included in my original email. The request is still pending. I put in Ric Flair to prove a point and…he’s cool.
(4) After Ms. Hadef informed BHCW of Dr. Varley’s Attorney’s attempts to prevent her from appearing in front of the judge on the Nepotism case, we wanted information on how The District made this decision. We also wanted to send the message that we were watching the matter – that we would publicly advocate that Ms. Hadef have her day in court. I haven’t checked on this one yet, and that one was also mine.
(5) Ethical Complaints against BOE members. After the BOE publicly voted to waste taxpayer dollars to give Ms. Stanley a lawyer to help with her ethics complaints against Ms. Akiri, Mr. D’Aquila disclosed that multiple ethical complaints had been filed against the BOE. How in the world did we only find out about this now? We found out about their ethics complaint against Sai the day it happened. We would never have known about the nepotism charge against Dr. Varley a year later. OPRA requests from parents – they can publish, Ethics complaints against Sai- a public theatre, ethics complaints against Dr. Varley- you’ll find out in an email from another parent in the District if you are lucky. This was provided.
(6) A copy of the Draft Nepotism policy Dr. Varley wanted the BOE to change before her nepotism case got before a judge. Lol. Despite asking for this over a month ago, we don’t have that yet.
(7,8,?) There is a bunch on email headers but that’s been a back and forth as the original set was illegally denied and then the second request (im not sure if I made that one or not -it came from the BHCW email but I forget who put that one in) came back with a 400+ price tag. Whether I sent that or not, I am now on top of that as I don’t believe that charge to be legal. I am going to work with the District on a compromise to avoid a lawsuit – Ms. Kot and I have been playing phone tag. So far 0 records have been provided to me.
(9) DEI- Directly connected to this article.
So while the District talks about multiple OPRA requests, they neglect to mention the denials, extensions and reasons why the increase in OPRA requests exist.
I nor the BHCW email account (to my knowledge) has ever submitted an OPRA request on a private individual without their knowledge or consent.
We will proudly continue to provide residents the ability to submit OPRA requests through BHCW so their names do not appear on the District’s OPRA Page.
Please email [email protected] and we will gladly submit an OPRA request on your behalf.
Residents can also use OPRA Machine to submit requests.
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