JERSEY CITY — Mayor Steve Fulop can continue to shield his meetings calendar from public view, thanks to a decision by the state Government Records Council.
At its meeting on Tuesday in Trenton, the GRC decided that the Fulop administration lawfully denied access to the mayor’s calendar when this reporter filed a public-records request in 2015 seeking a copy of it. The GRC based its decision on prior cases involving calendars of a Middlesex County official and Gov. Chris Christie.
The move is a reversal of sorts from May, when the agency said in a preliminary decision it was “difficult to imagine” why the mayor’s calendar would be exempt from disclosure under the state Open Public Records Act.
Tuesday’s decision puts an end to a nearly two-year fight by The Jersey Journal to obtain a record of Fulop’s daily meetings and events.
“We are greatly disappointed in the GRC’s decision,” Jersey Journal Editor Margaret Schmidt said, calling on the mayor to voluntarily share his calendar. “Instead of coming down on the side of the people’s right to know and transparency, the council chose to allow the slippery slope of secrecy to continue in the Jersey City Mayor’s Office.”
An email seeking comment from city spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill was not returned. She has said previously that Fulop should be afforded “some personal life and privacy for non-public events.”
However, Fulop’s calendar, created by one of his City Hall aides who is also his former campaign treasurer, is not just for private engagements, such as family gatherings. Rather, it includes all of the mayor’s public events, public and private meetings at City Hall and elsewhere, fundraisers, media appearances and scheduled telephone calls.
“As with other public officials up to and including the president, the public should have access to information on the mayor’s schedule to see how taxpayer money and government resources are being used and to be alert us to possible conflicts of interest,” Schmidt said. “In this digital age, it would surely be a simple task to rightly redact elements of the calendar that are strictly private for the mayor and his family or for, say, a constituent with a personal concern. The entirety of the schedule would still provide sunshine for the public to see how their mayor is conducting the city’s business.”
The GRC decision doesn’t prevent Fulop from disclosing his calendar, Schmidt noted.
The mayor’s office does provide a simple, usually weekly calendar to The Jersey Journal and other news outlets, but it is restricted to mostly ceremonial events such as ribbon cuttings.
“While these are appreciated,” Schmidt said, “they hardly account for even a quarter of the mayor’s workweek. They are nowhere near the standard of open government that Fulop himself championed as a councilman and later as a mayoral candidate.”
The GRC resolves disputes involving the Open Public Records Act. The three members of the GRC present at Tuesday’s meeting, held in a first-floor conference room in the Trenton offices of the state Department of Community Affairs, unanimously approved the decision without any public discussion. This newspaper’s dispute was one of 48 cases on its meeting agenda.
The Jersey Journal first requested Fulop’s calendar in 2014. In response, the Fulop administration released a heavily redacted copy covering the time period from July 2013 to January 2014. Soon after, Fulop’s office began emailing the calendar of his public appearances.
In May 2015, this newspaper requested Fulop’s meetings calendar covering January 2014 through May 2015. The city, which never formally denied that request, responded by emailing copies of the public events calendar and saying the meetings calendar would remain private. This reporter filed a complaint with the GRC in August 2015.
In May 2016, the GRC issued a preliminary decision questioning the city’s assertion that Fulop’s calendar should be protected from disclosure. The state agency ordered the Fulop administration to deliver copies of the calendar for the GRC to review.
After the Fulop administration filed a brief with a state appellate court hoping to quash the preliminary GRC decision, the GRC filed its own brief saying it would revisit its preliminary decision based on a Dec. 5, 2014 ruling by Judge Mary Jacobsen that the GRC said it had not initially reviewed.
In that case, which involved public-records requests for Christie’s meetings calendar by New York Public Radio, Jacobsen ruled that the deliberative process privilege protects disclosure of Christie’s calendar because privacy interests are implicated where the identity of individuals meeting with government officials would be revealed. Jersey City made a similar argument to the GRC, saying that releasing Fulop’s calendar would have “deleterious effects” by violating the privacy of Fulop and the people who meet with him.
With Jacobson’s ruling in mind, plus a 2005 appellate court decision that said a Middlesex County attorney did not have to reveal his non-public calendar, the GRC decided the Fulop administration’s denial to release Fulop’s meetings calendar was lawful.
Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
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