Associate Judge David A. Wiseman, however, denied the motion to dismiss the complaint against NMC President Carmen Fernandez and then-acting Northern Marianas College Chairwoman Eloise Furey.
According to Wiseman, Torres failed to “factually connect” Smith and Waugh to his “legally cognizable” Open Government Act claims.
Torres, R-Saipan, said college officials failed to show him the documents he requested by invoking the Open Government Act on June 12 and Aug. 2, 2007.
The court ordered the plaintiff and the defendants to meet and establish a feasible manner of disclosing the NMC public records as requested by Torres in a way that will not violate CNMI or federal law.
Wiseman set the status conference for July 24 at 1:30 p.m.
Torres sent an Open Government act request on Jan. 9, 2007 requesting all of NMC’s bank statements and cancelled checks for 2004, 2005 and 2006.
On Jan. 19, 2007, the Attorney General’s Office denied his request and explained that some of the documents were exempted from the Open Government Act.
Torres disputed the AGO’s contention and reiterated his request, this time excluding the cancelled payroll checks.
NMC responded through the AGO and offered Torres an opportunity to inspect the documents he requested.
Torres designated his staffer Jack Angello, a former NMC employee, to review the documents and requested that all banking transactions of the Bank of Guam savings account number 0203-805047 be made available for the calendar years 2005 and 2006, and that all payroll stub information including gross salary and deductions.
But the AGO informed Torres on March 28, 2007 that Angello would not be allowed to review the documents because he was a plaintiff in several lawsuits against NMC.
NMC counsel Matthew Smith wrote to Torres on March 29 informing him that it was improper for Angello to have direct contact with his client.
NMC also denied Torres’ request to for the check stub information for 2006 because such disclosure would violate the individual employee’s rights to privacy.
NMC further stated that Torres would have to bear the cost of copying pay stubs of 172 employees for 26 pay periods, or a total of 4,472 payroll stubs.
On June 12, Torres sent a new Open Government Act request for records of all public funds expended on NMC administrative employees shown on payroll checks, a copy of Fernandez’ employment contract with all attachments.
Torres asked the court to order the defendants to discontinue any violation of the Open Government Act with regard to his pending requests for the documents and an order for requiring the defendants to comply with the provisions of the law and produce the documents he requested on both occasions.
