Parsippany Withheld Councilman's Public Records: Lawsuit

PARSIPPANY, NJ — A resident has filed a lawsuit against Parsippany, alleging the township violated New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act (OPRA) by not providing requested information on a councilman.

Alex Rosetti alleges in the lawsuit filed Mar. 1 in Superior Court in Morris County that Parsippany and Town Clerk Khaled Madin did not provide the information in a Jan. 17 OPRA request for all emails sent or received by Councilman Justin Musella.

Rosetti sought copies of any email account used to conduct, participate in, or discuss township business, whether owned or supplied by the government or privately controlled.

The request covered the time frame of Sept. 15 through Nov. 30 of the previous year. Rosetti also requested a review of Musella's text and Facebook messages from the same time period concerning township matters.

According to the lawsuit, this action was brought because the township and Madin both failed to respond to Rosetti’s OPRA request relating to a problematic issue faced by Parsippany.

The complaint does not disclose where Rosetti is from or what "problematic issue" motivated the records request.

Whether the OPRA submission and lawsuit are connected to a disagreement between Musella and union representatives last fall over a union-friendly project labor agreement ordinance has not been made clear.

Both Madin and Musella could not immediately be reached for comment.

In November 2022 Musella introduced a petition to repeal the project labor agreement ordinance, which the governing body passed last month. The agreement requires municipal public-works projects costing at least $5 million to have a pre-established collective bargaining agreement.

This would give certain unionized workforces an advantage in obtaining contracts for these projects.

After several packed and contentious meetings, the council voted 4-1 to pass the ordinance on Oct. 19. Musella cast the lone dissenting vote.

"Undoubtedly the Defendants will have some rationale for not responding to the request. Maybe they forgot about it. Maybe their email is overloaded. Maybe they just do not want to revisit a very sore subject. The 'why' may be interesting. But it is not important," the lawsuit states.