Raritan Borough settles Gannett suit for $650,000

RARITAN BOROUGH - In what is believed to be the largest settlement of an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) case in New Jersey, the borough has agreed to pay $650,000 to Gannett New Jersey to settle a lawsuit filed after borough officials denied a reporter's OPRA request for electronically maintained municipal salary information.

"We are pleased and gratified that the Borough of Raritan has decided to resolve this case," said Thomas Cafferty, attorney for Gannett New Jersey, the owner of the Courier News, MyCentralJersey.com and five other New Jersey newspapers. "Our client took no pleasure in pursuing this matter and did so at great hardship and expense, but it did so because of the importance of access to government records in a meaningful fashion."

With no discussion or comment, the borough council voted unanimously Tuesday evening to settle the litigation which began when Gannett New Jersey filed suit more than six years ago over access to employee salary and overtime information. The newspapers wanted the data in an electronic format in order to compare and analyze salary information among many municipalities.

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After denying existence of the records, the borough sought to pass on a $1,100 service charge to convert the data.

But Gannett proved during a 2012 trial that the borough had access to the records in the format requested through a third-party payroll vendor.

In April 2014, Superior Court Judge Yolanda Ciccone ordered that the municipality pay more than $590,000 in legal fees incurred by Gannett New Jersey. The law allows plaintiffs to seek legal fees from government agencies that were found to have improperly denied access to government records.

“Open records access is vital to good governance,” said Paul C. Grzella, general manager/editor of the Courier News/Home News Tribune/MyCentralJersey.com. “We have pursued this matter for so many years because of this simple fact, and will continue to work diligently on behalf of the community we serve.”

Mayor Charles McMullin, in his State of the Borough address in January after he was sworn into a four-year term as mayor, pledged to make the settlement of the lawsuit a top priority.

"The Gannett lawsuit should have never happened," McMullin said, adding that the legal fight "serves no purpose for the people of Raritan."

The first-term mayor said after Tuesday's meeting that the lawsuit did not fit "into the borough's strategic agenda"  and that continuing the litigation, begun under former Mayor Jo-Ann Liptak, had "no support."

The mayor said the settlement, which will be paid in 90 days, will be funded by keeping the municipal budget to a minimum through insurance, surplus and the possible sale of unspecified borough assets.

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In January, the borough hired the Warren law firm of DiFrancesco, Bateman, Kunzman, Davis, Lehrer & Flaum as a special counsel with instructions to resolve the litigation.

The Borough Council also voted to dismiss a lawsuit it had brought against its former payroll company, Action Data Services in Fairfield. In that lawsuit, the borough said the company should be responsible if the borough lost its appeal of the court decision for Gannett and be ordered to pay attorney fees.

The borough said the company had told officials the requested format was not available unless the borough paid a fee of $1,100, which officials tried to charge Gannett. 

After the 2012 trial, the company waived the fee and provided the data to the borough, which turned it over to the Courier News.

In response, the company at the time said that the borough's strategy was "ill-advised" and that "for the last three years, Borough of Raritan has recklessly gambled with taxpayer dollars."

Staff Writer Mike Deak: 908-243-6607; mdeak@mycentraljersey.com