N.J. Mayor Proposes Limit to Requests Under Open Public Records Act

Longport Mayor Nicholas Russo is at his wits' end after his town put up a costly fight staving off a resident who filed excessive records requests to simply "bust chops."

Russo has proposed amending the state's Open Public Records Act, which provides guidelines for interaction between the public requesting government information and the agencies that provide it. Under his proposal, there would be a limit on the number of requests individuals and private agencies could make during a certain time.

Open government advocates have cringed at the idea of putting any type of restriction on records requesters. The current law, some say, already offers solutions for records requests that pose to substantially disrupt operations in towns, big and small.

Moreover, advocates say municipalities that put off investment in e-governance technology — such as providing a searchable electronic database of government documents on the Web — do more to hurt taxpayers than help them.

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