The Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC) fined Bloomfield town manager Alvin Schwapp $1,500 over the town’s handling of a Freedom of Information Act request filed over a year ago. The hearing officer who heard the complaint found the town’s response to the complaint was delayed because Schwapp was negotiating a settlement with a former town employee who he believed was working with Marc Needelman, a former deputy mayor and town attorney, to file FOIA requests.

Part of the settlement agreement reached with the former town purchasing manager asked her to have Needelman drop his pending FOIA requests and refrain from submitting further requests to the town.

There were multiple hearings held on the complaint, as well as a hearing for the consideration of a civil penalty against Schwapp and a town clerk.

On June 1, 2024, Needelman filed a FOIA request for a number of categories of records to be delivered to him on a thumb drive. Among the categories of record Needelman requested were all documents and correspondence between Andrew Crumbie, the Crumbie Law Group, and Danielle Wong related to the appointment of the town attorney; town attorney engagement agreements between the town and Crumbie or the Crumbie Law Group; invoices submitted by Crumbie to the town; correspondence concerning Crumbie sent or received by a number of town officials; and all town attorney opinions issued since November 2023.

On July 1, 2024, an interim town clerk acknowledged Needelman’s request.

On July 11, Needelman requested an update on the status of his request. The next day, according to the hearing officer’s report, the town clerk told Needelman “that his request was being worked on and that responsive records would be forwarded to him when ready for disclosure.”

On July 23, Needelman filed a complaint with the FOIC alleging the town had violated FOIA’s requirement that records request be answered promptly by failing to provide him with all responsive records.

The first hearing in the complaint was held on December 20, 2024. The day prior, the town provided what Needelman described as a “document dump,” providing a thumb drive of records they represented as containing all records responsive to his request.

The hearing officer’s report noted that at the date of the first hearing, Needelman had not heard from the town about his request since July 12.

Four days prior to the hearing, on December 16, a member of the town clerk’s office informed Needelman that he needed to prepay $500 in 50-cent-per-page copy fees for paper copies of the records. Needelman stated that he had requested the records in electronic format and would not pay the fee.

On December 17, Needelman emailed town attorney Andrew Cumbie to notify him he would be seeking a civil penalty against the town.

According to the hearing officer’s report, Needelman received a phone call from the town’s counsel “sometime between” December 17 and 20. During the phone call, the town allegedly said they had reconsidered the $500 charge and would instead provide a thumb drive with responsive records. At the first hearing on the complaint, an attorney for the town stated that the thumb drive was made ready for Needelman to collect the day before the hearing. Needelman was not able to pick up the thumb drive prior to the hearing, but the town brought it and paper copies of the records to the hearing. The town further stated that no records had been withheld or redacted.

Town Manager Alvin Schwapp appeared at the hearing because of a subpoena filed by Needelman. The town attempted to quash the subpoena prior to the hearing, but the hearing officer declined to do so.

At the December 20 hearing, Schwapp testified that he had been in his position since July 1, 2024, and that he would have become aware of Needelman’s request on the day it was filed.

The hearing officer’s report noted that Needelman’s request would have been sent to Crumbie Law Group for further action, but “it is unclear as to whom forwarded the request or when.” The report also noted that “at some unspecified time, guidance was given by the Crumbie Law Group to the respondents regarding how to respond to the request.”

During the December 20 hearing, Schwapp testified under cross examination that “he did not remember any direct conversation” with Crumbie about Needelman’s request other than saying “let’s make it happen” and “let’s make sure we take care of this.” Schwapp also testified that the interim town clerk would have been responsible for collecting records.

Based on testimony, the hearing officer found all records responsive to Needelman’s request were forwarded to the Crumbie Law Group for review “on an unspecified date or dates.”

Schwapp also testified that the delay in the release of records “was due to staff inexperience, staff resignations, and the November 2024 elections. He further claimed that the town “lacked a protocol to inform requesters of the status of their requests” and that the interim town clerk was “inexperienced in that role.”

But according to the hearing officer, “he later admitted under cross examination that the interim town clerk and an assistant staff member had both previously worked on FOI requests, and that he had never received any indication that either of them were incapable of doing so.”

On staff resignations, Schwapp stated that three-quarters of the town’s finance department had resigned by July 22, 2024, impacting the promptness of their response to Needelman’s request. Schwapp said the resignations “resulted from his suspension and ultimate termination of the town’s purchasing director, who had greatly assisted the finance director at the time.”

“The respondent town manager also testified that the November 2024 elections impacted the promptness with which the respondents disclosed records to the complainant; however, he failed to specify how.” the hearing officer wrote.

Schwapp also said when asked directly that he had not instructed any staff members to delay responding to the request and that no staff member had told him they were making an effort to delay the response.

At the close of the hearing, Needelman claimed the town had purposefully delayed release of the records due to their contents. He also asked to be granted time to review the records the town had released the previous day and for the opportunity to continue the hearing if he found them to be incomplete. The hearing officer granted the request.

According to the hearing officer’s report “the contractual relationship between the town attorney and the respondent town, as well as the approved and rejected invoices submitted by the town attorney to the town,” were central to Needelman’s request. The purchasing director who had been terminated typically handled invoices submitted by the town attorney, although the town manager testified that the purchasing manager’s termination was not related to a failure to process invoices.

Following the December 20 hearing, the town submitted an affidavit stating they had not withheld or redacted any records responsive to Needelman’s request. But Needelman submitted an affidavit stating he was not satisfied with the documents and asking for a continued hearing.

The second hearing in the complaint was held on March 20, 2025, and during it, Needelman claimed that he had “reason to believe” based on conversations he’d had with town employees that at least one record was missing from each category of records he’d requested.

According to the hearing officer’s report, Needelman did not receive any of the text messages he requested and the town responded to his request for requests for proposals by directing him to town and state websites instead of providing records.

At the March 20 hearing, Schwapp again reiterated that “he did not recall taking any action instructing town staff to deprioritize or reduce their efforts to respond to the complainant’s request.”

The interim town clerk also appeared at that hearing due to a subpoena issued by Needelman. She testified that she had 24 years of experience working in town clerks’ offices and 20 years of experience responding to FOIA requests. She also testified that she distributed Needelman’s request to the offices of the town attorney, town manager, town clerk, finance department, and IT department. According to the hearing officer’s report, the interim town clerk did not disclose any of the records she received from the town finance director and instead stored them until they were turned over to a permanent town clerk who was appointed on December 9, 2024. The interim clerk provided no testimony on why the records were stored.

A third hearing was held on May 12, 2025. At the hearing, Needelman said he still had not received the text messages he requested.

In a letter the town provided during the hearing, the town stated that no responsive text messages existed for current town employees named in Needelman’s request and they could not confirm or deny if text messages existed for former town employees. According to the hearing officer’s report, the town presented no testimony on its search for the text messages.

The town’s former purchasing manager, Nancy Haynes, testified at the May 12 hearing that she received text messages from the town finance director in July 2025 “seeking the location of disputed invoices in the finance department that may be responsive to the complainant’s request.”

According to the hearing officer’s report, Haynes knew how to locate the records based on her ten years of employment. The hearing officer found that, according to credible testimony from Haynes, “during the period of November 2023 until the date of her suspension on July 3, 2024, the purchasing director had refused to approve payment of certain town attorney invoices based on the statements’ noncompliance with the town attorney’s engagement letter with the town.”

Haynes hired a lawyer to negotiate a separation agreement with the town after she was suspended and eventually negotiated a retirement settlement rather than a termination. Crumbie and Schwapp negotiated the settlement on the town’s behalf.

The separation agreement contained a clause insinuating that Needelman was filing FOIA requests on Haynes’ behalf and requesting that Haynes ask Needelman “withdraw any and all such requests for information under [FOIA] with respect to complaints or inquiries made or filed by himself against the Town of Bloomfield.” The clause also sought to have Haynes ask Needelman to “refrain from filing any new or additional complaints” to the town.

On November 1, 2024, Haynes sent a letter to Needelman fulfilling that portion of the settlement. According to the hearing officer’s report, no records responsive to Needelman’s request were released between August 22, 2024, and October 28, 2024, the time during which Schwapp was negotiating the terms of the settlement. At no point during the hearings held on the case did Schwapp or any other town employee mention the settlement agreement in testimony.

The permanent town clerk, Anna Posniak, testified at a June 6, 2025, hearing on Needelman’s complaint. According to the hearing officer’s report, Posniak received Needelman’s complaint within a week of her appointment on December 9, 2024. She testified that she was not given any instructions about how to respond to the request. The town IT director provided her with responsive emails, which she “later provided” to Crumbie. But the hearing officer found Posniak provided no evidence about the dates she received those emails or forwarded them to Crumbie for review.

On June 17, 2025, the hearing officer convened a civil hearing penalty at which Schwapp was ordered to appear. According to the hearing officer’s report, Schwapp reiterated prior testimony from two previous hearings for a third time, “that he did not recall taking any actions instructing town staff to deprioritize or reduce their efforts to respond to the complainant’s request.”

But the hearing officer didn’t find Schwapp’s testimony credible, writing that “contrary to prior hearings, Mr. Schwapp hedged his testimony regarding when he first recalled seeing the complainant’s request and the type of directives, if any, he may have given town staff regarding compliance with such request.”

According to the hearing officer, Schwapp “sought the inclusion of such clause due to his belief that the complainant and the purchasing director were working in concert” and because he “wished to avoid any future “action” by Needelmen allegedly on Haynes’ behalf.

The hearing officer found that while Schwapp testified that he did not recall speaking to Crumbie about Needelman’s request, “despite substantial evidence to the contrary” provided at prior hearings. The hearing officer also found that multiple pieces of email evidence submitted by Needelman as evidence showed negotiations between Crumbie and Haynes’ former counsel over the terms of the separation agreement.

“Throughout such emails, the respondents’ town attorney frequently refers to the “TM,” understood to be the “Town Manager” Mr. Schwapp, and references Mr. Schwapp’s frustration with the complainant’s request and subsequent complaint to the Commission, which the town attorney frequently refers to as ‘nonsense.'” the hearing officer’s report notes.

At the June 17 hearing, Schwapp testified that he did not inform town staff about the settlement negotiations or their terms and stated that the settlement agreement had nothing to do with the town staff’s response to Needelman’s request. “It is found that such testimony is not credible.” the hearing officer wrote.

The hearing officer concluded that town officials failed to complete a thorough search for records and violated FOIA’s requirement that requests be responded to promptly.

The town manager found that the imposition of a civil penalty against Schwapp was warranted because, as town manager, he “is the public official directly responsible for all aspects of the operations of the respondent town and is therefore directly responsible for the violations,” the hearing officer found. She also found Schwapp’s “conflicting and misleading testimony” was not credible and his failure “to prove that responsive records were not withheld from the complainant” was not reasonable.

Further, the hearing officer found Schwapp engaged in tactics to avoid complying with Needelman’s request, resulting in a “significantly delayed response” of records, and that this was “not reasonable.” She also found his failure to explain the town’s failure to disclose responsive records was not reasonable.

For these reasons, the hearing officer found Schwapp met the statutory definition of having denied a FOIA request without reasonable grounds and warranted a civil penalty.

The hearing officer found that while Posniak did not prove she conducted a thorough search for records, there was not grounds to warrant a civil penalty against her.

At a FOIC meeting where commissioners voted unanimously to adopt the hearing officer’s report, Schwapp and a town attorney objected to the findings, arguing they were a judgment made by the hearing officer that was not supported by the record. Schwapp called the findings an attack on his character.

Before voting to adopt the hearing officer’s report, FOIC chairman Owen Eagan praised the work done by hearing officer Marybeth Sullivan both in compiling her report and in answering questions during a back and forth with town officers. Commissioners said it was difficult for them to ignore Sullivan’s judgment and substitute their own.

Republish This Story

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.