Below is my request followed by the Board's response. I don't know yet what I will do to pursue this, but I'm reporting this news now anyway. And recall I just filed an ethics complaint against this same school board. As OPRA recently changed in New Jersey, I'll have to carefully review: "A Citizen's Guide to the Open Public Records Act (Fifth Edition - Updated October 2024)."
In summary, the school librarian Martha Hickson used her personal Twitter then X account named "@sassy_librarian" to conduct school business. Librarians are trained to use social media accounts to conduct school business while hiding same from open government laws. Indeed, another librarian deleted her school library's X account just to hide information from FOIA requests, and she trained other librarians to hide things from everyone, even from the judicial system. See, "Amanda Jones Trains Librarians to Blind Courts; FOIA Filed to Find Out Illegality School Administration Allowed."
Know that Martha Hickson does indeed conduct school business using @sassy_librarian, such as where she was contacted by School Library Journal and responds with complaints about her NHVHS job from her @sassy_librarian account, although I didn't include this in my OPRA request:
- "As Compassion Fatigue Takes its Toll, Schools and Public Libraries Take Steps to Support Librarians," by Drew Himmelstein, School Library Journal, 17 February 2020.
Support Systems; We asked librarians on Twitter: How should your employers/institutions/schools support you in the face of burnout and compassion fatigue? Here are some of their responses. .... Martha Hickson; @sassy_librarian; One librarian for 1,600+ students and 150+ staff is unrealistic. I have had to learn how to say No to requests that don’t respect my time and set limits to keep my workload in balance.
MY OPRA REQUEST:
Dear Custodian of Records:
Under the New Jersey Open Public Records Act, N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1 et seq., I am requesting an opportunity to obtain electronic copies of public records that comprise communications about public business made by school librarian Martha Hickson on her private social media account on X called @sassy_librarian that she keeps "protected."
Using her position at the school as librarian and while conducting public business of managing the school library and acting locally, statewide, and nationally in support of conducting her business for the school library, she interacted with many people, organizations, and legislators on her @sassy_librarian account. For example, to advance the business of the school library, she worked with American Library Association and its subgroups including EveryLibrary and New Jersey Association of School Librarians and New Jersey Library Association, and with New Jersey legislators and media. So she worked in support of legislative bill S2421/A3446, the New Jersey Freedom to Read Act, about which she is the principal non-legislative proponent in New Jersey having worked directly with ALA and its subgroups. See this video of her testimony on A3446 to NJ Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia: https://x.com/DawnFantasia_NJ/status/1799189362363515033. All to advance the business of the school library.
So all communication in @sassy_librarian is being requested, from 1 January 2019 to present, including posts, replies, and direct messages. The account is used principally for the school's business. To date it comprises only 6,044 posts, so this OPRA request should be easy to fulfill.
"Protected" accounts and "direct messages" are designed to help users manage who has access. They are not a means to evade open government laws such as OPRA. Numerous courts have found in favor of open government access to private accounts when said accounts conduct public business. I'll assume you know this so I'll leave out going into further detail on this point. Public business is what Martha Hickson does with @sassy_librarian.
To ensure the correct account is being accessed, here is a fuller description from her main page, "SPIRIT OF JEZEBEL🐱Martha Hickson @sassy_librarian 2023 NJLA Librn of the Year; Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librns; NCAC Outstanding Librn; AASL, NJLA & NJASL Intel Freedom Awards. Ban book banners!"
If you tell her about this request, she may delete various posts or delete the account entirely. If that happens, she may have violated New Jersey records retention laws for public entities, and ditto with the school. You must figure a means to obtain the requested informed before she destroys it. It is a regular practice for librarians to destroy evidence once they feel information needs to be hidden from the public. I'm warning you about this now, so you best consider putting a legal hold or the like on those public records so they don't disappear, or obtain the evidence immediately before it is destroyed,
You may say to yourself this is a private account so I don't need to turn over any records under OPRA/FOIA and I can say it's a private account over which I have no control. But that impulse would be one that violates the law including case law. It may get you in trouble, not just Martha Hickson, for violation of OPRA, records retention laws, other laws and ethical codes. So I suggest not making such a claim.
You also may say to yourself either she conducts no public business using @sassy_librarian or there is no evidence that she conducts public business thereunder, so you'll respond accordingly. In either case, you would be wrong and again embroil yourself in possible legal and ethical violations. As you may know, the school board is currently being reviewed for ethical violations relating to school business Martha Hickson conducted, including by using her @sassy_librarian account. See, "Ethics Complaint: North Hunterdon-Voorhees Regional High School District Board of Education," by Dan Kleinman, SafeLibraries, 23 October 2024, https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2024/10/ethics-complaint.html.
For your own edification, Martha Hickson definitely uses @sassy_librarian to conduct the public's business, specifically school business. Allow me to exemplify.
On Tuesday, 15 October 2024, I attended the school's school board meeting. Many there will remember me as I was the one who accidentally played the very beginning of a President Donald Trump speech on my phone, right before the announcement was made to silence phones. Everyone laughed and rightly so. It was funny and I was embarrassed. See https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxC8BCSUDdtETgbceSlGE1nHz2rPmeYMGt
Apparently, that brought attention to me. People in the small audience behind me must have noticed me.
The next day, Martha posted on @sassy_librarian about me and my appearance at the school board meeting and she sent her message to three other people:
1) Emily Drabinski, the Immediate Past President of American Library Association ("Emily Drabinski; @edrabinski; Associate Professor, Queens College Grad School of Library & Info Studies. @PSC_CUNY. Collective power, public good. Queer. Left. Marxist. Lesbian. Solidarity"),
2) Amanda Jones, the school librarian currently touring the United States with a book that includes discussion about Martha Hickson and the school ("Amanda Jones: Defender of Libraries & Wonder; @abmack33; Teacher-Librarian | @SLJournal SLOY | Louisianan | @AASL Intellectual Freedom Award | My Book “That Librarian” is out now! | @LACitAntiCensor"), and
3) Kelly Jensen, the librarian Martha Hickson promotes including Jensen's recent post that parents who challenge school books are white supremacists ("Buttered Jorts (fka kelly jensen) 🐱🐰; @veronikellymars; @BookRiot Editor. Editor/Author of BODY TALK, HERE WE ARE, + (DON'T) CALL ME CRAZY. Former librarian. Yoga teacher. Your favorite infernal witch. She/her."). More details on those claims of white supremacy are here: "People Who Say 'No Books are Obscene' Think Parents are White Supremacists; It's Misdirection" https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2024/10/people-who-say-no-books-are-obscene.html
Emily Drabinski responds, "I am so sorry, Martha." Kelly Jensen responds, "And does he have kids in this district? Remind me..." Amanda Jones didn't respond.
This reveals several important things. One revelation is one can see the @sassy_librarian account is being used in the context of public business, namely the essential function of the school board to meet once a month in public as required by law. I attended that meeting, accidentally drew attention to myself, and suddenly I became subject du jour for Martha Hickson who was not even in attendance at the meeting, and she reported directly to the leader of the American Library Association, where she is also concurrently employed, by the way: https://www.ala.org/aasl/about/coms/ala.
Another revelation is someone is reporting back to Martha Hickson about something embarrassing that happened to me, and Martha Hickson seizes on that to report immediately to the American Library Association's top leader, who responds that she's so sorry. She's using the public meeting to find evidence to smear people who oppose what she and others are doing to keep kids reading pervasively vulgar and educationally unsuitable materials in schools despite Board of Education v. Pico and despite 2C:34-3 Obscenity For Persons Under 18.
Another revelation is Martha Hickson uses what happened in a public meeting to solicit comments from the very person who claims it's white supremacy for parents to challenge books in schools. A public employee soliciting input about a public meeting from a racist is the public's business.
This would not be the first time Martha Hickson conducts public business of supporting her efforts to keep books in the NHV school library by ridiculing me while I seek to expose how American Library Association is harming children. There's another X account of hers but it is not "protected" so anyone can see what she's writing at "NH-V Intellectual Freedom Fighters; @NHVfREADom; Supporting students’ right to read. Safeguarding the BOE from Hate Slate extremism. tinyurl.com/stophateslate" while smearing NHV parents as "hate" and "extremists." Frankly, if Martha Hickson unprotects her account, this OPRA request would instantly dissolve, except for the direct messages, but I digress. At @NHVfREADom she calls me names, mocks me, and disparages my business--all to advance the work she's doing for the school. "It’s not often that legislative hearings generate laughs, but @AndrewZwicker telling the head of the make-believe W🌎rld Library Ass to pick up his trash was priceless! Thanks, Senator!" and "Here’s the NJ Monitor article that led head of make-believe W🌎rld Library Ass to claim @AndrewZwicker called him a 'meddling minority.' Apparently it's a reading comprehension issue, which explains a lot. The NJ Monitor called his ilk a meddling minority."
The point of all of that is to show Martha Hickson is using @sassy_librarian for promoting public business, namely, the very work she's been doing as school librarian to oppose what she calls book banners in her school and using that position to advance those interests in the state and nationally.
Note, she also used the school's website nhvweb dot net for this very purpose, so it cannot be argued that her use of @sassy_librarian was not for local public business, even as it encompassed state and national work. See https://web.archive.org/web/20230319215109/https://libguides.nhvweb.net/c.php?g=1035323&p=7505173 "Bookmark this page and/or keep the listed items on file, and you'll be ready to respond quickly and confidently when censors strike."
From what I can tell, Martha Hickson uses @sassy_librarian solely to promote her public work for NVH school. As such, I seek all her posts and replies and direct messages from present back to the entirety of 2019, when she first began defending books that violated Pico and 2C:34-3.
This shouldn't be too hard nor too time consuming. Simply collect all posts, replies, and DMs from 1/1/2019 to present from @sassy_librarian. I will take it from there and publicize them, the very purpose of open government laws including OPRA.
If there are any fees for searching or copying these records, please inform me if the cost will exceed $100. However, I would also like to request a waiver of all fees in that the disclosure of the requested information is in the public interest and will contribute significantly to the public’s understanding of why school librarians are filling school libraries with reading material that is pervasively vulgar and educationally unsuitable. It is literally an issue that is being used by both presidential candidates, that's how big this is, and precisely because American Library Association turned it into a "wedge issue" for political gain so more politicians would promote ALA goals regarding school children. See: "Library Boards Trained to Lie by ALA; Banned Books Wedge Issue Adopted by White House," by Dan Kleinman, SafeLibraries, 21 June 2023, https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2023/06/library-boards-trained-to-lie-by-ala.html.
The disclosure of her transaction of public business on her private @sassy_librarian account may also be relevant to potential criminal charges being brought against her for violation of obscenity law. See: "Time to Charge NJ School Librarians Martha Hickson and Roxana Caivano With Obscenity Under 2C:34-3," by Dan Kleinman, SafeLibraries, 15 April 2024, https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2024/04/time-to-charge-nj-school-librarians.html.
I will take this information and make it public at my popular SafeLibraries blog with almost a million and a half views. My request is related to news gathering purposes. This information is not being sought for commercial purposes.
The New Jersey Open Public Records Act requires a response time of seven business days. If access to the records I am requesting will take longer than this amount of time, please contact me with information about when I might expect electronic copies of the requested records. As Martha Hickson was allowed to retire at the end of the month instead of being fired, time is of the essence.
If you deny any or all of this request, please cite each specific exemption you feel justifies the refusal to release the information and notify me of the appeal procedures available to me under the law.
Thank you for considering my request.
Under penalty of N.J.S.A. 2C:28-3, I certify that I have not been convicted of any indictable offense under the laws of New Jersey, any other state, or the United States.
Sincerely,
Dan Kleinman
THE NHV BOE'S OPRA RESPONSE:
RE: October 24, 2024, Open Public Records Act ("OPRA") Request (the "Request")
Dear Mr. Kleinman:
This letter is in response to the above-referenced OPRA request which was received by the North Hunterdon-Voorhees Regional High School District Board of Education (“Board”) on October 24, 2024. The initial seven (7) business day period to respond to your OPRA request is November 4, 2024. This response is being provided to you timely.
As you may be aware, OPRA defines a "government record" of a public entity as "any paper, written or printed book, document, drawing, map, plan, photograph, microfilm, data processed or image processed document, information stored or maintained electronically or by sound-recording or in a similar device, or any copy thereof, that has been made, maintained or kept on file in the course of his or its official business ..." N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1.1. Accordingly, the Board is required to produce only those records which it maintains in the official course of business. Pursuant to the definition of a government record, a public entity is not required by OPRA to research information and/or create records that do not exist in response to OPRA requests. See e.g., Mag Entertainment, LLC v. Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, 375 N.J. Super 537 (App. Div. March 2005).
Your request and the Board's response to same is as follows:
Request
[E]lectronic copies of public records that comprise communications about public business made by school librarian Martha Hickson on her private social media account on X called @sassy_librarian that she keeps "protected”[.] . . . [A]ll communication in @sassy_librarian is being requested, from 1 January 2019 to present, including posts, replies, and direct messages.
Response
The Board objects to the request as it seeks information, records, and/or documents which are not maintained by the Board and do not constitute government records as defined by OPRA. As noted above, OPRA defines a government record as a record that has been made, maintained or kept on file by the Board, or that has been received by the Board, in the course of its official business. N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1.1.
The X, formerly known as Twitter, account that has been identified in your request is a private, personal and protected social media account, not made, maintained, or kept on file by the Board. Neither the account, nor the content within it, has been received by the Board, and the Board has no involvement with this private social media account. The account is not within the Board's possession or control, and the Board has no access to the account. It is not an account run by the Board, and the Board does not use the account for its public business.
Your request alleges that Martha Hickson maintains the identified social media account, while also expressly acknowledging the account is both her private account and kept protected. The Board is without any knowledge that she has used the account to conduct public business. Your request alleges a comment may have been made about a Board meeting, and although the Board has no way of knowing if that is true or not, even if it was, it doesn't necessarily constitute conducting public business. Similarly, the fact that a personal social media account may be maintained by an employee of the school district doesn't make the account public. The Board objects to the allegations that the account has been used to conduct "public business."
In addition, despite the Board being unable to access the account, the Board also objects to the request as overly broad and unduly burdensome, as the request alleges that the social media account consists of 6,044 posts to date, while also requesting all posts, replies and direct messages. The request fails to identify the specific records being sought with reasonable clarity, and instead appears to be a general inquiry for information, requesting all content within the social media account without any specificity. There is no discernable government record requested, and if a request does not name specifically identifiable records or is overly broad, a custodian may deny access.
Similarly, the Board also objects to the use of the word "all" in your request since it is well established that under OPRA a request for "all" or "any and all" documents and records is unclear, overly broad and burdensome. See New Jersey Builder's Assʼn v. N.J. Council on Affordable Housing, 390 N.J. Super. 166 (App. Div. 2007). Similarly, in Shipyard Associates, L.P. v. City of Hoboken, the Court determines that the term "not limited to" constituted an improper request, noting that such a "broad application lacks specificity and would require the clerk to conduct research to uncover 'any and all' documents 'concerning' [the request]." Shipyard Associates, L.P. v. City of Hoboken, No. A-3794-13T1, 2015 WL 10352982, at *4 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. Sept. 1, 2015).
An OPRA request is a vehicle for accessing identifiable government records rather than for the purposes of submitting general requests for information. OPRA requires that a request for public records identify, with reasonable clarity, the specific records that are being sought, and if a request does not name specifically identifiable records, a custodian may deny access. Moreover, a records custodian is not required under OPRA to conduct research to discover which records, if any, are relevant or responsive to an overly broad request, nor to create any records that do not otherwise already exist.
The request fails to identify the specific records being sought and, even if the Board had access to the account (which it does not), it would require the custodian to conduct research (of at least the alleged 6,044 posts you identified, as well as all replies and direct messages) and/or create a record, which is beyond the scope of a custodian's duties. See Mag Entertainment LLC v. Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, 375 N.J. Super. 534 (App. Div. 2005) ("[w]hile OPRA provides an alternative means of access to government documents not otherwise exempted from its reach, it is not intended as a research tool to force government officials to identify and siphon useful information. Rather, OPRA simply operates to make identifiable government records 'readily accessible for inspection, copying, or examination. N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1"). See also New Jersey Builders Association v. New Jersey Council on Affordable Housing, 390 N.J. Super. 166, 180 (App. Div. 2007) ("Research is not among the custodian's responsibilities”).
Further, the Board also objects to the extent that the request for social media communications did not comply with the requirements applicable to requests for communications. To that end, the Government Records Council has previously established that for an OPRA request seeking emails to be valid, the request must contain: "(1) the content and/or subject of the e-mail, (2) the specific date or range of dates during which the e-mail was transmitted or the emails were transmitted, and (3) a valid e-mail request must identify the sender and/or the recipient thereof." See Joseph A. Elcavage v. West Milford Twp., GRC Complaint No. 2009-07 (April 8, 2010). See also Armenti v. Robbinsville Board of Education., GRC Complaint No. 2009-154 (February 28, 2012), where the GRC has applied the logic of Elcavage to overly broad requests encompassing communications in addition to emails.
As the request acknowledges the account is a private, individual/personal account, that is kept protected, the Board further objects to the extent the request seeks personal information which would infringe upon a citizen's reasonable expectation of privacy, which the Legislature has declared shall be safeguarded from public access. N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1.
The Board further objects to the extent that the request seeks information and/or documents that are subject to any and all other applicable privileges and/or exemptions from production under OPRA.
Subject to and without waiving the above objections, as explained above, the Board is not in possession of any documents responsive to this request; the identified account is a private, personal and protected account, not maintained or utilized by the Board to conduct its official business.
If your request for access to a government record has been denied or unfilled within the seven (7) business days required by law, you have a right to challenge the decision by the Board to deny access. At your option, you may either institute a proceeding in the Superior Court of New Jersey or file a complaint with the Government Records Council (GRC) by completing the Denial of Access Complaint Form. You may contact the GRC by toll-free telephone at 866-850-0511, by mail at P.O. Box 819, Trenton, New Jersey 08625, or by e-mail at gre@dca.state.nj.us, or at their website at www.state.nj.us/gre. The GRC can also answer other questions about the law. All questions regarding complaints filed in Superior Court should be directed to the Court Clerk in your County.
Sincerely,
/s/
Kathryn Blew
Business Administrator/Board Secretary
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