EDITORIAL: FORMER FIRE DEPARTMENT DIRECTOR TO PUBLIC - GO AWAY.

REQUEST TO VIEW VIDEO AT THE SCENE OF A TRAFFIC INCIDENT DENIED

Most articles in The Reporter arise from an expectation that our government will provide reasonable accommodation for a request for service or information.  When they don’t it inspires questions about their process and motivations.  This is one of those articles.

I live across the street from The Good Intent Fire Company.  They installed at least four cameras on the building at the corner of Buttonwood and Garden.  Two dome cameras and two bullet cameras.   

After the installation, a theft occurred at my 47 Garden Street home.   A scrap metal collector decided to back his pickup down my driveway and steal a large old steel cabinet from my backyard.  He and an accomplice loaded it onto his truck and then drove out into the intersection for a getaway.  I know this because my neighbor watched the incident unfold and told me she thought I hired them to remove the “junk”.  Yes, I found it funny too.  But I was also angry.

So, I reported this to the police and literally was told [jokingly] by the then Chief that far from investigating the theft, he thought I should be issued a summons for a solid waste violation.  So, with that declaration that the police would not lift a finger to investigate, I sought to do my own investigation by viewing Fire Department camera video.  It was a great plan until the Fire Department Director said No.   

No, residents could not look at such a “sensitive” video.  If the police wanted to view the footage for an investigation, that would be ok, but residents could not get access. Of course, the Police had just told me they didn’t care.  Disgusted, I just dropped the matter.

Now is a good time to say that Mt Holly’s Fire Department is structured like the Township.  There is a group of five elected officials [Commissioners] who hire or fire a Director with a part-time salary hovering somewhere over $40,000.  That Director is responsible for day to day operations of the Fire Department.  

If you don’t like the way a Director is running things, you will have to convince 3 of the 5 Commissioners to fire that person.  And generally, the bar will be high to get that kind of outcome, so Administrators  have wide latitude in how they run things.

Amongst the duties of the Administrator is what the State of New Jersey calls “Records Custodian”.  That is a position responsible for Open Public Records Act [OPRA] decisions.  When a resident requests a record, the Custodian is required to respond within 7 working days, which works out to be about 2 weeks.

In 2022, I again had reason to use OPRA to gain access to Fire Department camera footage because of our crazy traffic issues [see Traffic Fail].  A neighbor kid was nearly T-Boned at the intersection in front of Good Intent.  I saw the whole thing unfold like a slow-motion train wreck.  He proceeded into the intersection from Buttonwood just as the person going east on Garden decided to jam his accelerator, revving his engine loudly.  The neighbor’s car cleared the eastbound lane just as the pickup flew past his fender, easily going 40 MPH.  The neighbor later told me “he was going WAY faster than I thought”.  So I decided to look at the video, and maybe get a license plate to file a complaint.

The same Fire Department Administrator who told me No when the theft happened told me no again, and this time cited a legal decision that involved Police Departments.  The basic idea is that video of people entering police departments could reveal the identity of informants or abused spouses.  I appealed this decision stating that the Fire Department had no such worry and therefore had no basis to deny my request.  On January 12, 2023 the Administrator said the following: 

“Good evening, Mr. Sodano. Your OPRA request was received and reviewed by both this executive and the District’s legal counsel. Following review, your request for surveillance video is denied under N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1 – Security measures and surveillance techniques. Given this determination, the District has classified your request as responded and closed.”

In a court decision touching on this issue, New Jersey Chief Justice Stuart Rabner said that “while OPRA was not appropriate for this video [at the Police Station] because [OPRA] doesn't weigh the competing interests of security versus open government  - a suit brought under "Common Law" could allow the court to weigh the relative needs.”

In other words, the Fire Department Director was telling me to drop it, or go to Superior Court using a common law complaint to overturn his decision.  The Fire Department had none of the security issues of the police department to protect investigations and victims.   But in order to challenge the denial I would bear the time and expense of going into Superior Court seeking a “common law” ruling, for video that might not even be available by the time the ruling came.

The Administrator who made that decision quit in 2024. 

I am hopeful that the new Director will seek to accommodate residents who need to view video.