To the editor: Your story “District being sued over suit” (Nov. 17) deserves clarification. To be clear, I have not filed a lawsuit in any court against the West Milford school district for its failure to give me public records I requested in reference to a settlement it reached with Kristina Kardanow. I have filed a compliant with the Government Records Council (GRC) over that failure to release information about the agreement involving the expenditure of public funds. After being stonewalled on several fronts, on October 2, I submitted to Steven Cea, the custodian of records for the West Milford school district, a request under the terms of the Open Public Records Act (OPRA) to view the Kardanow settlement agreement. In his response to me on October 5, Cea wrote, “Our attorneys have advised that the terms of the settlement are confidential and cannot be disclosed.” On October 27, I filed a Denial of Access Complaint with the GRC, the state agency that investigates OPRA violations. Since then I have received a letter from Cea dated November 1 that appears to me as if it was written by Vito Gagliardi, Jr., the school district’s lawyer. I also have received a copy of a letter to the GRC dated November 8 that is signed by Gagliardi. Each letter tries to fudge facts pertinent to the issue. Regardless of the contents of the letters and of what Gagliardi may have told the board of education during its meeting on November 14: Cea refused my request to view the Kardanow settlement agreement in his office under the advice of “our attorneys.” Gagliardi is one of those attorneys. Indeed, he is the school district’s principle lawyer. Yet, knowing that Cea denied me access to the information because it supposedly was confidential, Gagliardi told The Messenger that the Kardanow lawsuit had been settled for “$20,000, $23,000, somewhere around there,” according to your story. That’s a new one on me. The custodian of records for the school district refuses to release the settlement amount because his lawyers have advised him it is confidential. Yet, the school district’s principle lawyer gives your reporter a vague amount of the settlement. To be clear, my interest in obtaining the settlement figure is the public’s right to know how its money is being spent. Whether the settlement was $2 or $20,000 or $200,000 is not my point. Rather, I strongly believe that the public has the right to know the amount, regardless of how much it is. I also believe that the elected members of the board of education and the paid appointees of the school district have an ethical and moral obligation to keep the public informed. I also believe that they should be held accountable for their actions, which is why I filed my complaint with the GRC. Martin O’Shea West Milford