legislators in New Jersey are determining which bills will make it through this post-election lame duck period of the legislative session and one possible reform could be a change to Oprah requests Oprah is the open public records act that allows the public and the media access to the inner workings of government but a proposed bill could make that access much more difficult and that's not sitting well with three organizations in the state including the American civil liberties Union in New Jersey and the League of Women Voters of New Jersey BriannaVannozi recently spoke with a representative from the third group The New Jersey Working Families party about the cost that these changes could have on Democracy in the state Antoinette I appreciate your time um New Jersey Working Families a coalition of groups sent this letter essentially you all said that these changes to Oprah would diminish transparency but also perhaps embolden public officials uh to quote act with impunity what specifically do you see as threats to transparency here yeah thanks so much Briana for having me speak on this um really we are looking at this uh New Jersey working families and the Coalition that we put together with legal Women Voters in ACLU and we've seen how Trenton has taken several steps back and has chipped away at transparency over recent legislative sessions and so we are really concerned that reforms put to Oprah would really diminish the power of Oprah and access to the public records that public so rightfully deserves to access the loss potential loss of the attorney's fees via fee shifting we feel that that is a really important provision that allows the public to be able to pursue Oprah challenges through their municipality and so we're concerned with the loss of that that many people may not even uh pursue a Oprah request um because they will not be able able to have the legal representation that they so rightfully want to have when it comes to specific op requests so we are concerns about curtailing fee shifting and we also are concerned about measures that would really uh narrow the scope in which people can bring about uh Oprah complaints and challenges particularly with moving away from the superior court process to the GRC the government records Council um and so we know that GRC is a small AE state agency that is uh not been well funded in recent years and has a severe backlog when it comes to government records complaints uh and so we are worried that the public will be waiting uh months and sometimes even years to see the result of an opah request um that is quite detailed how do you contend uet with the argument that many lawmakers have made where they say Hey listen we're all about transparency but commercial businesses are coming in inundating our Municipal clerks with these requests that they then turn around use as data mining sell for a profit uh and our municipalities are left holding the bag how do you argue with that yeah I'll say a few things about that number one I think we our point of view is that we not throw the baby out with a bath water we understand that there are people out there commercial interest who do use Oprah and data m um and it is quite burdensome for for clerks Municipal clerks and so our rebuttal to that is let's give clerks the support that they deserve um if there are ways to support them and I know that Senator Loretta Weinberg former Senator was uh very detailed in her previous proposals when she was in the legislature to bring the clerk's Association to the table to bring municipalities to the table to talk through these things and so I think that we are looking at this is uh making sure that we do give clerks the support that they need and that we address these issues but also at the same time I would challenge um you know who was left holding the bag when we don't have uh a strong Oprah bill that allows us to look into government Mal feance and waste Fraud and Abuse abuse of taxpayer dollars um we need to tally up that cost as well um should we have a weak in Oprah Bill Antoinette Miles is with the new Jersy Working Families party Antoinette thank you so much thank you