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City of Hoboken, NJ
Hudson County
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Table of Contents
Code
Zoning Map New Laws (0) Index Notes (5)
[Adopted 12-15-2004 by Ord. No. DR-177]
New Jersey has adopted the Open Public Records Act, N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5, which has as its general purpose making government records more available to the public than they have been in the past. In certain instances, the production of voluminous records, archived records, or records in a format which is not the usual format maintained by the municipality or other special circumstances would be costly and time consuming. The New Jersey Open Public Records Act permits the municipality to require the payment of fees, special service charges and/or special charges as a prerequisite to the production of records requiring extraordinary time and effort, special equipment or special formatting.
The statutory fee schedule shall apply to routine requests under the Open Public Records Act. The fees of N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5 are hereby incorporated herein as such fees schedule presently exists or as such fees might appear in future modifications or amendments of the statute.
At present time, fees under N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5 for routine copies of municipal documents are:
Pages 1 through 10
$0.75 per page
Pages 11 through 20
$0.50 per page
All pages after 20
$0.25 per page
If fees for particular documents are set by statute to be amounts other than those set forth here, those fees shall apply.
The establishment of the position of deputy custodians of documents are as follows:
A. 
Chief of Police.
B. 
Tax Assessor.
C. 
Tax Collector.
D. 
Construction Official.
E. 
Court Administrator.
However, all requests must be made directly to the Custodian of Records, the City Clerk.
Nothing in this section shall require the custodian or deputy custodians of documents or any other municipal official to examine, analyze, tabulate, or interpret documents which are subject to production under the New Jersey Open Public Records Act.
A. 
Charges authorized. The City Clerk or deputy custodian of documents qualifying for mandatory production as governmental records under the New Jersey Open Public Records Act shall be entitled to special service charges and/or special charges as set forth in this section.
B. 
Requests to be in writing. Any requests for documents shall be made to the City Clerk in writing and preferably on a form established by the City Clerk for such purposes.
C. 
Advance notice of fees, special service charges and special charges; deposit. Any requester of government records which may be eligible for the imposition of a fee, special charge or special service charge under this section shall receive advance notice of the amount of fees and charges before any work is started. The City Clerk shall require prepayment of such charges before causing the work to begin.
A. 
Duplication or other work beyond capability of municipal-in-house work force. Whenever the in-house municipal work force or available municipal equipment is insufficient to duplicate or produce government records in a timely fashion, the City Clerk may cause such duplication or production to be accomplished by outside vendors such as copy centers or producers of digital images. If the costs of such duplication or production charged by such vendors exceeds the routine charges set forth in N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5, the actual direct cost of same without any additional surcharge for labor costs shall be paid.
B. 
Special service charged authorized. Whenever government records cannot be reproduced by regular copying equipment or fulfillment of the request would involve extraordinary time and effort (for example, where a large number of records must be recovered from storage or substantive staff time is required to review, redact, sort and/or assemble records), charges may be imposed as follows:
(1) 
The actual cost (materials and supplies but no staff labor) of duplication or reproduction; plus
(2) 
A special service charge of $32 per hour or the actual direct cost of labor (if less) shall be imposed for each hour of extraordinary time predicted to be utilized to respond to the request.
C. 
Rates for in-house production of prints or blueprints. Any prints or blueprints produced in-house in response to a governmental records request shall be produced for $28 per page.
D. 
Digital records. If a request for governmental records involves production or conversion of digital or computerized records or film which is:
(1) 
In a medium not routinely used by the agency (i.e., electronic or film).
(2) 
Not routinely developed or maintained by an agency; or
(3) 
Requiring a substantial amount of manipulation or programming of information technology.
E. 
The requester shall pay fees and special charges incurred by the City if the conversion is done directly by the City as follows:
(1) 
Direct costs (no overhead) to comply with the request; plus
(a) 
Special charges; the lesser of the cost of technology and labor actually incurred or $45 per hour.
A. 
The City of Hoboken may be compelled by New Jersey Law to produce or duplicate governmental records but no compliance with these legal obligations shall be deemed to constitute a license, sublicense or waiver of copyright laws.
B. 
The City Clerk shall give the following notice to any requester of governmental records.
NOTICE — COPYRIGHT LAWS
You must comply with U.S. copyright laws. These laws may restrict your right to use, duplicate or modify the records provided to you by the City of Hoboken. You should consult your own legal counsel on this since severe civil and criminal penalties for violation of copyright laws are provided.
The Mayor, Clerk or City Council (by resolution) may waive the fees or other charges otherwise chargeable if the requestor of governmental records is a governmental or educational entity.