Walsh backs Emails being open through OPRA

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Publication

July 28, 2008

Walsh backs Emails being open through OPRA

MIDDLETOWN TOWNSHIP (MONMOUTH COUNTY, NJ): Middletown Democrat for Township Committee Patricia A. Walsh said she would lobby to make E-mails written from township-owned computers accessible to the public through OPRA.

“I believe it is the public’s right to know what happens on the machines they buy,” Walsh said. “A public servant should always be mindful that the taxpayers are the boss, and it is to them they are accountable.”

Walsh said it is her intention to lobby to create a more transparent government in town because it is what is right. “There can be excuses for not doing what is right, which is what this Township Committee is giving the public, but that can never live up to being as good as just doing the right thing.”

Walsh said she is seeking the Township Committee’s support in a program of backing up all existing Emails, to ensure that any potentially unauthorized correspondences by members of the administration are not destroyed.

Specifically, Walsh said she wants correspondences preserved where it involved communications between department heads, attorneys, members of the governing body, and historical information where it involves E-mail discussions about sensitive issues such as COAH and the recent aborted tax assessment of Middletown.

In addition, Walsh said she wants to preserve all existing files on administration desktops, to review these and ensure that unauthorized programs and actions have not been taken by the administration in the performance of their duties in town.

“I do intend to clean house, with the help of the committee, and make any township officials who have been remiss in their duties accountable,” Walsh said.

But beyond accountability for the past, Walsh said permanently opening up taxpayer-access to E-mails by the administration is just “good government.”

Walsh admitted there are some E-mails that, by law, would not be able to be open for public review. However, she said those would amount to a relatively small percentage of the whole.

“This township has been governed by people who are comfortable in secrecy and executive privilege for too long. They have lost their way and have forgotten that the Town Hall they wield power from is the property of the taxpayers of Middletown and is not their private domain,” Walsh concluded. “It is my intention to offer the Middletown Committee’s majority a fresh lesson in government, which has always been intended to be by the consent of the governed, and not instead of it.”

###