County GOP researcher sues Edgewater Park for records

Thursday, August 7, 2014 6:54 pm | Updated: 9:40 am, Fri Aug 8, 2014.

EDGEWATER PARK — A records researcher for the Burlington County Republican Committee is alleging that the municipality has violated the Open Public Records Act.

In a lawsuit filed July 22 in Superior Court in Mount Holly, James Logue, of Medford, claims that Township Clerk Linda Dougherty did not provide or “make available or produce readily accessible documents” within a one-week extension period; requested a special service charge as “an attempt to discourage” Logue from making the request; did not use either of the township’s two lowest-paid employees to fulfill the request; and failed to meet the burden of proving the need for the special charge.

Dougherty and the all-Democratic Township Committee are listed as defendants. The suit seeks the production of the documents and rejection of the service charge, along with attorney fees and costs of the suit.

Phone messages left for Dougherty at her office and at a number listed in the White Pages were not immediately returned. Township Solicitor William Kearns declined to comment on the litigation, saying only that the township is trying to resolve the issue.

Attempts to reach Mayor Tom Pullion, a candidate for the Burlington County Board of Freeholders, were unsuccessful. Pullion and former Evesham Councilman Mike Schmidt hope to unseat Republican Freeholders Bruce Garganio, who is the board’s director, and Joe Howarth.

Logue’s May 21 request lists 25 categories of documents, some dating back as far as 1995. They include financial records, township resolutions, meeting minutes, lawsuits and correspondence, along with multiple documents relating to Pullion.

According to the suit, Dougherty requested a $3,937.12 fee to cover copying costs and a special service charge for gathering the documents, and informed Logue that the request would take 60 days because of the volume of the request and staffing limitations. Logue, according to the suit, refused and would agree only to a one-week extension he was originally granted.

Republican Committee spokesman Chris Russell said Logue has made previous records requests for the organization but none that resulted in a lawsuit.

In 2011, Logue was granted a public records request for thousands of pages of information in Mount Olive, Morris County. According to public meeting minutes from April 26 of that year, Councilman Rob Greenbaum said the request was politically motivated, given the fact that Greenbaum and fellow Councilman Ray Perkins were locked in a Republican mayoral race.

Greenbaum, now the town’s mayor, said during the meeting that public records requests are “wholly appropriate,” but that Logue’s would result in “significant additional expense” and would have a “crippling effect” on the clerk’s office’s ability to carry out daily activities on behalf of residents.