Essex County judge to rule next month on request to dismiss Bloomfield public records case
Township officials say the municipality produced all the required records. Requester says key information was withheld.
An Essex County judge will decide next month whether a Bloomfield resident’s lawsuit accusing the township of mishandling and prematurely shutting down a public records request can move forward.
Doug Grant, a 44-year-old data analyst, sued the township in May after officials allegedly gave him incomplete municipal payroll and financial records, according to the complaint. He also claims many of the records the township provided were missing key information or were in the wrong format.
Township officials have argued that they did nothing wrong.
Earlier this month, Assistant Township Attorney Steven Martino asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing Grant’s request would have required the township to create new records rather than release existing ones, something New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act does not require.
Martino also disputed several of Grant’s allegations, including claims that the township improperly removed employee identifiers from payroll records, substituted summary reports for detailed financial data, and withheld other requested documents.
“This is not a case where the township ignored an OPRA request, refused to search for responsive records, concealed records, or invoked a blanket exemption,” Martino wrote in the July 8 motion. “The township responded to plaintiff’s request, produced the responsive records it maintained.”
Grant, who is representing himself, pushed back in a court filing, repeating many of the claims in his original lawsuit.
He accused the township of engaging in a “pattern of constructive denial” by providing records in the wrong format, producing what he called “incomplete and manipulated” data, failing to issue a formal denial letter, allowing someone other than the records custodian to shut down his request, and misrepresenting the capabilities of its software to the court.
Grant also argued that the township’s motion to dismiss the case relies on factual misrepresentations.
Essex County Superior Court Judge Jennifer Critchley is scheduled to decide Aug. 14 whether the case should be dismissed or allowed to continue, according to court records.
Bloomfield Mayor Jenny Mundell did not respond Monday to a request for comment. Members of the Township Council also did not respond.
Martino declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
The dispute began with a public records request Grant filed in March seeking check registers, disbursement journals, payroll registers, transaction records, and other financial documents.
Grant told The Jersey Vindicator he filed the request because he has long had questions about the township’s finances, particularly how municipal officials handle salaries, retirements, and pensions.
He also requested three years of salary ordinances and personnel resolutions involving the Department of Public Works, recreation department, and fire department.
Grant says the township never fully complied with those requests.
Instead, he alleges officials provided some records as hard-to-work-with PDFs rather than Excel spreadsheets, removed employee titles, positions, and departments from payroll records, substituted summary reports for detailed transaction data, and withheld other requested documents.
Grant later exchanged emails with Township Secretary Andrea Schneider and Martino in an attempt to resolve the dispute. According to the complaint, those efforts broke down, and Martino instructed Schneider on March 31 to shut down the request and stop communicating with Grant.
After months of back-and-forth with township officials, Grant asked the court to determine whether the township unlawfully denied him access to public records. If the court agrees, he wants Bloomfield to be ordered to produce the documents he requested.
“The question is not whether something is being hidden,” Grant told The Jersey Vindicator this spring. “The question is how much.”
Steve Janoski is an award-winning investigative journalist with nearly two decades of experience covering criminal justice, policing, courts, government, and politics. His reporting has exposed corruption, government malfeasance, and police misconduct. His work has appeared in the New York Post, USA Today, The Associated Press, The Record, and the Asbury Park Press. At The Jersey Vindicator, he covers criminal justice. Reach Steve at steve AT jerseyvindicator.org.