A Statement Regarding The School District OPRA Complaint
Bollard M
5/16/20262 min read
I want to clear up confusion surrounding the recent public dispute involving the Mansfield Township School District and the GRC complaint filed by Committeeman Brent Connelly. This complaint was filed solely by Committeeman Connelly. It was not filed by the Mansfield Township Committee as a governing body. The Committee did not vote to file it, did not authorize it, and to my knowledge, was not consulted before it was submitted. Any elected official can file an OPRA request or pursue a records complaint if they believe records were improperly denied. That is their right. However, one member’s action should not be spoken about or presented to residents as though it was an official decision of the full Township Committee. It was not.
My concern is not the legal merits of the OPRA complaint as that process can run its course through the deciding body. My concern is that this matter has now spilled into public statements, radio comments, forum posts, and unnecessary tension between the Township and the School District. If Committeeman Connelly is going to speak on this issue, he needs to be clear when he is speaking for himself and when the Township Committee has actually taken action. This has now gone beyond a records dispute.
Based on the communications that have been shared, the working relationship has deteriorated to the point where at least one Township liaison can no longer have normal discussions with school administration without the expectation that counsel may need to be present. That is a serious problem. When routine communication between two local public bodies gets to the point where attorneys need to be in the room, something has gone wrong. Residents should also remember that Mansfield taxpayers fund both sides of this. The Township and School District are separate public bodies, but the money comes from the same residents. Every hour spent on legal review, staff responses, public statements, and back-and-forth disputes is time and money that should be used more productively.
There is nothing wrong with asking hard questions about a school budget. There is nothing wrong with demanding transparency. I support both. But there is a right way to handle public business, and there is a major difference between an individual official taking action and the Township Committee taking action. For that reason, I am calling on the Mansfield Township Committee and the Mansfield Township Board of Education to properly notice a special public meeting and address this directly. The purpose should be simple: clarify what happened, establish how future communication will work, stop the public back-and-forth, and protect taxpayer money. This should not be handled through political posts, side conversations, or statements that blur the line between one committeeman’s actions and the actions of the full governing body. It should be handled openly, professionally, and in front of the residents.
Anything short of a serious good-faith effort to resolve this would be a failure of duty to the people we were elected to serve.
Michael Bollard
Township Committeeman