Tyrrell agreed with Mittelstadt’s assessment.

Since public access to information is one of SPJ’s areas of concentration, Miskoff asked Tyrrell to take the lead in organizing a meeting of potentially interested groups, both media and non-media. They were able to use News 12 New Jersey’s facilities in Raritan Center and brought in Kyle Neiderpreum, the incoming president of the national SPJ, as a speaker at their March 1999 launch. The session was well attended, and the idea of forming a coalition drew a good response from participants. Follow-up meetings were held at the NJ Citizen Action office in Highland Park and at Rutgers.

NJ-SPJ provided the organizational funds for the initiative; NJPA also contributed funding. Harry Pozycki, the former Middlesex County freeholder then head of NJ Common Cause, and Tomterm himself but withdrew from the race. So by late 2001, when the bill came across his desk, DiFrancesco was beholden to no one in the political class.

In years of trying to gain lawmakers’ support for the law, the NJPA had not been willing to make a key concession – exempting legislators from OPRA requests. On the final day of the 2000-2001 legislative session, Guy Baehr conveyed to legislative leaders that other coalition members were willing to make that deal to gain passage of the law. Joe Tyrrell then met with then-Assembly Speaker Jack Collins to confirm this. Collins posted the bill, it passed, and DiFrancesco signed it as one of his final actions as governor. OPRA took effect in July 2002.

NJFOG continued to grow following OPRA’s passage,