ORANGE, NJ — In August, Orange resident Katalin Gordon filed an Open Public Records Act with the Orange City Clerk’s Office for information and filings related to a bulk tax lien sale the city conducted in 2015.
On Friday, Sept. 1, the City Clerk’s Office responded to Gordon’s request. On Tuesday, Sept. 5, Gordon complained that the clerk’s response was incomplete.
“Neither the council resolution, nor the preliminary document describing the expected list and value of the liens to be sold qualifies as the contract. Please provide the contract document, signed at the time of the actual exchange of the liens against the $1.7 million dollar payment provided, of the bulk lien sale,” Gordon wrote in a response to the clerk.
On Thursday, Sept. 21, Quinn Fields, an employee in the City Clerk’s Office, relayed assistant city attorney Avram White’s answer to Gordon’s OPRA request related to the lien sale. White said the contract was nowhere to be found.
“The Legal Department has searched its records and is unable to find the executed contract document, signed at the time of the actual exchange of the liens against the $1.7 million payment provided, of the bulk lien sale above,” said White in his Sept. 21 email to Gordon. “We are continuing to search our records. The office was flooded last year and there were some documents that were destroyed. It is possible that this is the reason we cannot locate the document.”
White went on to state that the Clerk’s Office had redacted portions of the bank records, mostly deposited checks, that had been provided to Gordon, in response to her initial request for records related to the 2016 bulk tax lien sale.
“As to your second inquiry regarding the redaction. The redaction was made by the Tax Collector’s Office to protect the exposure of the city’s banking information,” said White. “I will ask the Tax Collector’s Office to reissue our response without the redaction. You are expected to take the necessary measures to ensure the account number remains secured.”
White’s response was not well-received by Gordon, South Ward resident Karen Wells and former Citizens Budget Advisory Committee member Bruce Meyer
“The $1.7 million contract is lost, without a trace,” said Gordon on Friday, Sept. 22.
Meyer commiserated with Gordon’s latest run-in with the lack of transparency in Orange city government.
“The dog ate my homework,” said Meyer on Friday, Sept. 22.
Wells said she couldn’t believe the city attorney’s explanation for not giving Gordon the information she requested.
“If they think we believe this, they are sadly mistaken,” said Wells on Friday, Sept. 22. “The only copy was a paper copy? No electronic record of any kind? Impossible. Totally impossible. To even think that this is acceptable is incomprehensible. Something must be done about this immediately.”
Local attorney Jeff Feld has filed his fair share of legal complaints with the city, county and state courts. He said Gordon might have to go back to court to appeal White and the city clerk’s inability to answer her lawful OPRA request.
“Something is seriously amiss here,” said Feld on Friday, Sept. 22. “Were the documents seized when the FBI raided City Hall? Does the record custodian and the city have a duty to obtain a copy from the purported purchaser?”
Gordon said Feld’s questions represent the tip of the iceberg, when it comes to the deeper, underlying issues implied by the current administration’s failure to answer her OPRA request.
“Well, it is even worse than it appears to be,” said Gordon on Saturday, Sept. 23. “The ordinance, that gave the city the right to sell these liens in bulk, was approved on May 27, 2015, and required a 10 percent deposit, to be forfeited, together with the voidance of the ordinance, if the rest was not paid within 30 days. It wasn’t. There is no 10 percent deposit.”
Gordon also said it appears the Orange City Council that originally complained that the bulk tax lien sale had been conducted improperly, without their permission, in 2015, also failed to live up to their mandate to investigate the sale after it supposedly occurred.
“There was no new ordinance allowing the sale of the liens for the same prize in December of 2015,” said Gordon. “The other part of the OPRA, already filled, shows not one entity paying the $1.7 million, but a hodgepodge of separate checks from different buyers. And finally, there is no contract to see how many and which liens were sold in December and to whom. That’s a pretty nifty arrangement.”
“I believe they are playing games,” said Wells on Saturday, Sept. 23. “I have a suggestion for an updated OPRA request. Any and all departments and offices should be searched, not just the law department. That includes: tax collector, tax assessor, business administrator, chief financial officer, finance and any other department remotely involved in the transaction. We would like to see any and all copies, drafts, execution copies, interim copies; any and all copies that were signed at times other than when the actual exchange of the liens occurred.”
Gordon has a track record of successfully appealing OPRA request denials by the Orange city administration and the Clerk’s Office, and said she’s willing to spend the time it takes to do so again, if it means finding out what actually happened with that 2015 bulk tax lien sale and who benefited from it the most.
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