Borough of Fort Lee, NJ Chapter 316 Public Records

[HISTORY: Derived from the Revised General Ordinances of the Borough of Fort Lee, 1978, adopted 3-1-1979, as indicated in article histories. Amendments noted where applicable.]

Article I Fees for Copies and Services

[Derived from Ch. II, Sec. 2-22, of the 1978 Code]

§ 316-1 Fees.

[Amended 9-13-2001 by Ord. No. 2001-46; 9-12-2002 by Ord. No. 2002-40; 5-27-2004 by Ord. No. 2004-23; 8-19-2004 by Ord. No. 2004-33; 3-27-2008 by Ord. No. 2008-21; 2-12-2009 by Ord. No. 2009-9; 4-14-2011 by Ord. No. 2011-10]

A. All public records which are required by law to be made, maintained or kept on file by the Borough shall be available to every citizen during regular business hours to copy such records by hand, and they shall have the right to purchase copies of such records, pursuant to N.J.S.A. 47:1A-2. Copies of records shall be made available upon the payment of the following fees, which shall be based on the total number of pages, or parts thereof, to be purchased at a price of $0.05 per letter-size page or $0.07 per page for legal-sized copies.

B. In the event said public records are requested and necessitate the location and mailing of same to the party requesting said public records, then the additional fees therefor shall be as follows:

(1) Mailing charge: actual postage, plus $0.25 for stationery-related expenses.

C. Police escort for the transportation of moneys, valuables or other personal property: $5 per trip per hour or fraction thereof.

D. Writs of discovery:

(1) Seventy-five cents per page for the first 10 pages.

(2) Fifty cents per page for the next 10 pages.

(3) Twenty-five cents per page thereafter.

E. Video recordings/audio recordings.

(1) Fees for the purchase of police video recordings and/or audio recordings will be charged at the flat rate of $1 each per video and/or audio recording.

(2) An additional cost of mailing of any video and/or audio recordings via certified mail will be at a flat rate of $6.00.

F. Requests for proposals, documentation and/or plans and specifications: fee not to exceed $50 or the cost of reproducing the documentation, whichever is greater.

G. (Reserved)

H. Reproduction costs. When the Borough does not have the ability to reproduce a document for a person requesting such document, the exact reproduction cost charged to the Borough will be passed on to the requestor with no other administrative charges added in.

I. Police accident reports. In the event that police accident reports are not requested in person and not part of Municipal Court discovery, copies of the reports shall be made available upon the payment of the following fees:

(1) First three pages: $5.

(2) Each page thereafter: $1.

J. CDs. In the event that a request is made for recordings of meetings of the Borough Council, Planning Board or Board of Adjustment, the Borough shall charge a fee of $5 for a copy of the recording of the meeting in a CD format.

K. Special requests. Whenever the nature, format, manner of collation, or volume of a public record embodied in the form of printed matter to be inspected, examined, or copied pursuant to N.J.S.A. 47:1A-2 and this article is such that the record cannot be reproduced by ordinary document-copying equipment in ordinary business size or involves an extraordinary expenditure of time and effort to accommodate the request, the Borough may charge, in addition to the actual cost of duplicating the record, a special service charge that shall be reasonable and shall be based upon the actual direct cost of providing the copy or copies. The person requesting the public record shall have the opportunity to review and object to the charge prior to it being incurred.

L. Photographs. Fees for the purchase of police photographs will be charged at the following rates:

(1) Up to the first 10 photographs: $5 per photograph.

(2) Each photograph thereafter: $3 per photograph.