The State of New Jersey has adopted the Open Public Records
Act (hereinafter the "OPRA" or the "Act"), which has as its
general purpose making government records more available to the public
than they have been in the past. In certain instances, however, the
production of archived records, copies of records in a format which
is not in the usual format maintained by the municipality, or other
special circumstances, has been deemed to be both costly and time
consuming for the Borough to comply with. The Act therefore permits
the Borough to require the payment of fees and special service charges
as a prerequisite to the production of records requiring extraordinary
time and effort, special equipment and special formatting. The Act
further permits the Borough to demand that all charges for "ordinary"
requests for information be paid in advance, as payment of the fee
is a prerequisite for receipt of copies of any government record that
is requested.
Nothing in this chapter shall require the Custodian of Documents
or any other municipal official to examine, analyze, tabulate or interpret
documents which are subject to production under the Act.
The Mayor or Custodian of Documents may waive the fees or other
charges otherwise chargeable if the requestor of governmental records
is a governmental or educational entity.