[brief] The Commission erred in denying complainant’s request to amend his complaint based on new, material information relevant to his complaint (Raised at: Pa13)  As part of the Opposition to Motion to Dismiss, Complainant [...] filed a Certification of certain facts related to his desire to amend his complaint (Certification of Michael [...], Pa42).  In his statement, Mr. [...] indicated that he had filed an Open Public Records Act (“OPRA”) request with the District regarding the Referendum.  In response, the district sent a “voluminous” number of documents.  Mr. [...] summarized what was contained in just a small part of those documents as follows:  In January 2021 Board members admit they are aware they must be neutral in a referendum; Respondent [...] suggests that the Board link property values to the Referendum outcome; Superintendent [...] sent a letter to South Hunterdon High School seniors of voting age to urge them to vote for the referendum to “support[] these important projects”; Statements that Lambertville Public School cannot be renovated; Purpose of survey is not to get citizen input but to use it as a roadmap to getting “yes” votes; Respondent [...] statement that Lambertville majority members will not allow any option that includes no school in Lambertville; Key communicators were formed to get “yes” votes with supervision from the Superintendent and the individual board members; and From March 2021 through October 2021, Board members and Superintendent removed numerous items from presentations, videos, talking points, etc., that painted the Referendum in a negative light or that may be controversial.  (Pa43)  Pursuant to N.J.A.C. 6A: 28- 6.7(c), Complainant [...] requested to amend his complaint based on the information contained in this document dump, indicating “These emails and documents are directly relevant to the claims of ethics violations in the Complaint.  Therefore, Complainant respectfully requests that the Commission permit Complainant to file an Amended Complaint adding allegations relating to the documents produced by the school district in response to the OPRA request” (Pa44).  In its decision to Dismiss the Complaint in its entirety, the sum total of the response from the Commission is shown below:  “At its meeting on April 25, 2023, the Commission considered Complainant’s request to amend his Complaint and, ultimately, voted to deny the request” (Decision on Motion to Dismiss, Pa13).  Here the Commission gives no reason for its denial or consider arguments either way.  It merely denies the request.  As indicated by the sample of topics in the request dump, there was every reason to believe that an amendment based on those documents would potentially bolster Complainant’s case against the Respondents.  However, the Commission choose to deny the request.  Instead, the Commission should have construed the Complaint with liberality and generosity as required by N.J.A.C. 6A:28-8.3, and allowed the Complainant to amend his complaint with the new information.  By denying this request, the Commission not only did not use the “liberality and generosity” litmus test of the statute, they actively denied new incriminating information against the Respondents from coming into the record.  For this reason alone, the Decision to Dismiss should be reversed, the matter remanded back to the Commission, and the Commission ordered to allow an amendment of the complaint based on the OPRA request dump documents.