Last June, The Jersey Journal received a tip about an incident in Guttenberg involving two town employees. Town Clerk Alberto Cabrera reported to police that Public Safety Director Michael Caliguiro allegedly threatened him with a gun in an argument over the temperature setting of an air conditioner. The news here is not only what happened but also the town's refusal to make a police document available to the public.

A copy of the clerk’s complaint to the local police was recently obtained by The Journal from a source. It was reported that during the argument, Caliguiro, 62, took his gun from his desk and placed it in his waistband, which Cabrera, 52, described to police as a threat. Caliguiro had complained that he was freezing in the town office, adding, presumably about the air conditioner, “I will shoot it or throw it out the window.”

When town attorney Charles Daglian refused to hand over the police report, he said there was a criminal investigation into the matter. Daglian was using a convenient catch-all method within the Open Public Records Act (OPRA) that prevents police information from becoming public.

A judge threw out the clerk’s harassment complaint. Telephone calls to Daglian just after he denied The Journal’s OPRA request and again this week were not returned.

Although officials are given the right to withhold some information, under certain circumstances, they are required by law to provide basic disclosures, after a 24-hour period.

Mayor Gerald Drasheff would only say the two employees are getting along fine now. Both men were unavailable for comment. One would think that the mayor would have been a bit more concerned at the time since the incident supposedly resulted in a criminal complaint about the brandishing of a firearm.

Anyone denied access to a public record can file a complaint with the state's Government Records Council, which gives credence to the phrase, "waste of time." According to the State Integrity Organization, a partnership of the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International, it takes too long for the Records Council to decide appeals and the OPRA law has too many exemptions.

When readers wonder why there is not more information in a news report about a particular incident, often it is because official disclosure is less than forthcoming. The Guttenberg incident is just another example of how state law is easily ignored for political expediency.