School board to pay damages for failing to disclose minutes
A New Jersey state court has ordered the Pleasantville Board of Education (PBOE) to pay a newspaper $18,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees because of the board’s refusal to provide complete minutes of board meetings to the paper. In January the Press of Atlantic City sued PBOE, claiming the board had refused to provide records of five closed session meetings held last year. According to billing records, the school district spent nearly $33,000 defending itself in the suit in addition to the $18,000 it must now pay the Press. "I think it's unconscionable that any public entity would waste money that could go to student services but instead went to legal fees," says John Deserable, a state-appointed special monitor who will begin overseeing the district's finances in July.
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By Associated Press
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