Watchdog picks his battles with towns over public records
Armed with nothing more than a college degree, time on his hands because of a successful business and an intense desire to see bullheaded officials exposed, John Paff is a rebel with a cause and a litigator without a license.
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Armed with nothing more than a college degree, time on his hands because of a successful business and an intense desire to see bullheaded officials exposed, John Paff is a rebel with a cause and a litigator without a license. triggerAd(1,PaginationPage,8); The cause is open government and Paff knows the ins and outs of laws on open records and open public meetings far better than most attorneys.But Paff, 52, of Franklin Township in Somerset County, defies anyone's stereotype of a rabble-rousing activist. The onetime insurance broker is president of the Middlebush Volunteer Fire Department. Married, he has two children, 12 and 8.A landlord and property manager with a low-impact work schedule, he devotes 30 to 40 hours a week to going after officials — some in the Shore area — he contends are trying to keep public records from going out to the public.He has filed a dozen lawsuits under the Open Public Records Act, another dozen under the Open Public Meetings Act and more than 50 complaints with the Government Records Council, the agency assigned to settle disputes over records. He occasionally uses lawyers, such as Richard Gutman of Montclair.In one case, separate OPRA requests by Paff and the Asbury Park Press for information about a lawsuit settlement by Monmouth County were denied, and both filed suit. A state appeals panel ordered the county to make the terms of the settlement available and directed the trial court to determine how much to award the Press and Paff in attorney fees, pending further court review.In 2008, Paff was successful in court proving that the Keyport Borough Council did not correctly adhere to certain guidelines of OPRA. Paff contended that the council had violated the law by not providing him with meeting minutes in a timely manner.Last July, the Toms River Township Council was ordered by a judge to alter the way it keeps minutes of closed, executive sessions. The ruling was made in response to a lawsuit Paff filed after he had difficulty getting the executive session minutes from three meetings held in 2006.(2 of 4)He's not undefeated triggerAd(2,PaginationPage,15); Paff speaks at an excited clip about the intricacies of the law, larding his comments with anecdotes about police brass, judges and elected officials trying to evade scrutiny.Just now coming off a defeat, he seems to still be smarting a bit.In May, a state appeals court ruled that municipalities do not have to accept faxed OPRA requests. The ruling was the latest and perhaps final leg of a battle Paff waged against East Orange when the city denied his faxed request for records.To some people, these are trifling matters. But Paff sees these small obstacles in the aggregate, discerning in them a tool to grind down the public and keep government matters secret."A lot of these clerks are not operating in good faith," Paff said. "I don't think that's a paranoid stretch of the imagination."Vincent Buttiglieri, clerk of Ocean Township in Monmouth County who sits on the board of the Municipal Clerk's Association of New Jersey, said there is a lot of gray area in dealing with records requests."The direction we get from attorneys and the Government Records Council is something Mr. Paff may not always agree with," he said.Buttiglieri, who has not dealt with Paff personally, added: "He feels like he's a watchdog, and I respect that."With fewer members of the news media uncovering local misdeeds, Paff said, the burden for him and other open government advocates has grown. Sometimes he finds that no one is in charge of some vital governmental duties."In a lot of cases, there aren't any grown-ups anymore," he said. "There aren't any overseers. We're it."Tracking settlementsA recent battle has pitted him against a police department that told him it does not have an internal affairs unit — the unit that investigates citizen complaints against officers.In a bid to find out if a municipal prosecutor was indeed not cited by the police for caus