Published July 14, 2025
UPDATE October 8, 2025: Webpage is updated to contain documents related to Mr. Long attempting to file a false attestation during this matter.
UPDATE October 6, 2025: On September 30, 2025, OOR issued a scathing denial of Mr. Long’s Petition for Reconsideration. In their denial, OOR highlighted several case citations and legal stances by Mr. Long that either didn’t exist, or don’t stand for the legal arguments Mr. Long says they do. Mr. Long has continuously provided erroneous legal briefs over the past two years in OOR matters. Mr. Long’s conduct goes beyond simple self-representation missteps. Mr. Long is filing official legal papers under threat of perjury that the information he is submitting is true and correct. However, as clearly stated in OOR’s denial letter (see below), Mr. Long is not verifying his submissions. All of these filings have forced the Borough to review the content, generating legal fees, further punishing the Borough (by extension its taxpayers) directly because of Mr. Long’s reckless conduct.
This recent denial letter was submitted to the Borough’s Solicitor for further review. The Borough will continue to work with the Northampton County District Attorney’s Office to pursue any potential criminal charges of false swearing.
OOR Response to Mr. Long’s Petition for Reconsideration
UPDATE September 25, 2025: Mr. Long files a lengthy and highly irrelevant, Petition for Reconsideration with OOR. Mr. Long doesn’t appear to be satisfied with the records he was provided, and he believes OOR should have found the Borough acted in bad faith, without any evidence to support his wild claims. The Borough will respond as necessary. With this latest filing, Mr. Long continues to make false claims under penalty of perjury.
Long Files Petition for Reconsideration
UPDATE September 10, 2025: Mr. Long asked Bath for a significant amount of QuickBooks financial reports (audit trails, and account reconciliations). The Borough gave some records but said other records (such as Audit Trails) didn’t exist or would require creating new records, which the RTKL doesn’t require. OOR decided that the data sought in Audit Trail Reports does exist and the Borough must share more of these reports because pulling data from QuickBooks is different from making new records. The OOR also said the Borough doesn’t have to give Mr. Long records in Excel format if the records exist in PDFs.
OOR agreed that supplying those reports are different from creating new records, even though the Borough proved the Audit Trail Reports requested didn’t exist at the time Mr. Long made the request. Mr. Long lost his argument that he’s entitled to records in Excel format. Mr. Long, (for the fifth time) loses his bid compelling OOR to find the Borough acted in bad faith.
OOR also noted Mr. Long’s potential use of artificial intelligence during this proceeding: Mr. Long, at one point, cited to a purported Commonwealth Court case to support a claim that the Borough’s argument regarding the creation of a record is barred by judicial estoppel and that it is a doctrine applicable to agency proceedings. However, OOR reviewed the citation finding it revealed a completely different case than the one cited by Mr. Long. OOR went further to say there was no evidence that the Commonwealth Court case cited by Mr. Long even existed.
The Borough will weigh whether OOR’s determination goes too far: that the Borough was able to demonstrate certain records did not exist, yet finding the Borough failed to demonstrate that providing reports (that don’t exist) creates a record under Section 705 of the RTKL.
UPDATE August 1, 2025: After a flurry of filings by Mr. Long (who is attempting to unlawfully manipulate this appeal in his favor) and the Borough, challenging Mr. Long’s false statements, OOR was open to a briefing schedule. OOR has since decided against this course of action and officially closed the record. OOR is expected to make a Final Determination in this matter by or before September 10th.
UPDATE July 28, 2025: Mr. Long attempted to post on this docket an attestation from a former Borough Council President that appeared to be forged. When the Borough checked with this former councilperson Saginario about this document, it learned the attestation was not signed by Saginario (even though it was pending to the docket as signed by the individual). Additionally, Saginario claims he never even created the attestation; Mr. Long did. The matter will be referred to the Northampton County District Attorney’s Office.
Borough Argues Attempted Filing of an Attestation May Be Forged
Attempted Saginario Attestation Filing by Mr. Long
UPDATE July 26, 2025: On July 24th, one day after the record closed, Mr. Long filed a 562-page document supporting his reasons why the Borough should be forced to create records that didn’t exist at the time the request was made.
In his filing (which largely appears written by artificial intelligence) Long asserts some wild claims. Of the wildest, Long claims something called ‘judicial estoppel’ and another legal theory called ‘four corners doctrine’ all of which does not apply to this Right-to-Know Law case. The Borough has preemptively informed OOR, that even if Mr. Long attempts to coin the phrase ‘quasi-judicial estoppel,’ such legal theory doesn’t exist for RTKL matters.
Judicial estoppel isn’t relevant in this case because the OOR is not a judicial body. Long believes that because the Borough provided a record in another RTK matter (which the Borough was not under any legal obligation to do), it should be estopped from trying to deny the same type of record in the instant matter. Mr. Long is using four corners doctrine to make a claim the Borough should have simply read his request as written, considering nothing else. Even though Mr. Long demanded the Borough watch a video tutorial he produced as a supplement to the request, instructing the Borough how to create new records that didn’t exist at the time of his request.
The Borough has reminded OOR of its obligations under a recent message by OOR’s Executive Director Liz Wagenseller: ‘Artificial Intelligence and the Right-to-Know Law: Be aware of the Risks.’ This statement was issued on July 17, 2025. Appeals Officers have been put on notice that AI chatbots are currently not reliable tools for preparing submissions under the RTKL and should not be considered a substitute for legal counsel or professional representation. Consistently, Mr. Long has used AI chatbots to write appeal submissions that are unverified, containing AI hallucinations including non-existent cases, mischaracterizations of legal precedent, erroneous summaries of case law, and invented language attributed to legal authorities.
Wagensellers message goes on to say that repeated submissions of unverified AI-generated material–especially after prior inaccuracies have been identified– may result in additional penalties. Knowingly submitting false information to the OOR or a court may also carry criminal consequences under Pennsylvania law (see 18 Pa. C.S. Section 4904(a).
To read Wagenseller’s message, click here.
Mr. Long has bragged about his use of AI chatbots in the past. Just recently, as of July 3, 2025, Long sent an email to Manager Flynn, Borough Council, its legal team, and a member of the Morning Call, referencing County Petition for Review C-48-CV-2024-1039; OOR Docket #2023-1598 saying at the end of the email the Borough lost to a Chatbot. See below email and highlighted post-script section in yellow:
Note on Mr. Long’s postscript message: Two points.
First, Schnee, Kratz, and Flynn didn’t laugh at Mr. Long after a January 14th court hearing, for bringing this case to the Borough. Mr. Long walked out of the hearing and engaged the Borough in banter, stating: “Oh well.” Then specifically taunted Manager Flynn by saying, “I have smoking gun evidence of the money Brad stole. I was going to share it with Council last night.” To which Flynn replied by simply thanking Mr. Long for making the January 14th Court date possible. [Long filed a preacipe for argument meant to delay the case with a frivolous motion. However, Judge Panella allowed both parties to argue the full merits of the case, in addition to Long’s motion, on the same day. This was something unexpected by Mr. Long that he opposed to at hearing.]; Flynn thanked Mr. Long for pushing the petition for review ‘over the hill’ to a final resolution by securing the January 14th argument date.
Second, the Borough didn’t ‘lose’ to a Chatbot subscription. In fact, the Court didn’t side with any of Mr. Long’s ridiculous filings. Long was actually sanctioned $1,000 in that case by the Court for his frivolous, bad faith, court motions and filings. Long lost when he paid the $1,000 to the Borough for his bad faith conduct in using Chatbot AI to create motions filled with hallucinations, non-existent case law, and mischaracterizations of legal authority that didn’t convince the judges in this case of anything.
UPDATE July 24, 2025: This case hinges on three different issues: 1) the Borough is not required to convert records into specific file formats, 2) the records requested do not exist and the Borough is not required to create new records, and 3) a portion of Mr. Long’s request lacks specificity.
Mr. Long’s first issue on appeal is arguing the records he did receive from the Borough should have been exported in Digitial Microsoft Excel format and not provided as PDF documents, where he received account reconciliation summary and detail worksheets as requested. What Mr. Long fails to consider is that the RTKL provides requestors with the right to inspect and duplicate a record. The duplication is a snapshot, a static record that cannot be altered or modified, in other words, a “copy” and the law specifically prevents access to an agency’s computer, evidencing intent to protect government records and files from any interference. The records sought in a portion of Mr. Long’s request was delivered to him where the Borough has complied with the RTKL.
Mr. Long’s second issue on appeal is arguing Audit Trail Reports for particular accounts within the Borough’s QuickBooks accounting software is a public record. However, what Mr. Long fails to consider is that the Audit Trail Reports he’s seeking is the creation of a customized report using 10 different parameters in order to generate documents that did not exist at the time of Mr. Long’s request. Mr. Long has even stated that these records would need to be compiled individually and exported. There is no doubt, even from Mr. Long’s position, that he is looking far beyond information that simply exists in a database, which isn’t allowed under the RTKL.
Finally, Mr. Long asserts that asking the Borough to generate new records detailing all financial transactions created, entered, or modified by the user ‘boroughmgr’ or any user account associated with the Borough Manager position across all QuickBooks company files, funds, and accounts for the period January 1, 2018, through December 31, 2024, doesn’t lack specificity. The Borough cannot determine which user accounts are being sought as the only user account associated with the Borough Manager is the one identified in the Request. To the extent that the Request seeks to create reports for accounts associated with the Borough Manager position other than ‘boroughmgr,’ the Request is insufficiently specific because no other Borough Manager user accounts exist.
Mr. Long’s third argument also demonstrates his complete lack of understanding of the Audit Trail Report. An Audit Trail Report contains the username(s) that made a transaction entry on an account, which doesn’t require an additional report to be created.
On July 14, 2025, the Borough received notification that Mr. Michael Long has filed, yet another appeal to the Office of Open Records, related to Right-to-Know Request #09.2025.
OOR Final Determination
Office of Open Records Docket Entries (32 Entries):
| Filed | Description |
| 09/30/2025 | OOR Denial of Petition for Reconsideration (2 pages) |
| 09/25/2025 | Requestor Petition for Reconsideration (45 pages) |
| 09/10/2025 | OOR Final Determination (24 pages) |
| 08/04/2025 | Requestor Correspondence (pages unknown) Mr. Long attempts to file additional correspondence on a closed record. OOR does not include this new information as part of the record. Borough was not a party to Mr. Long’s submission of additional information. |
| 08/01/2025 | OOR Correspondence (1 page) OOR has officially closed the record. |
| 07/30/2025 | Agency Correspondence (4 pages) |
| 07/30/2025 | Agency Correspondence (1 page) |
| 07/30/2025 | Agency Correspondence (6 pages) |
| 07/30/2025 | Requestor Correspondence (20 pages) |
| 07/30/2025 | Requestor Correspondence (3 pages) |
| 07/30/2025 | Requestor Correspondence (3 pages) |
| 07/30/2025 | Requestor Correspondence (4 pages) |
| 07/30/2025 | Requestor Correspondence (1 page) Requestor submits what appears to be a Docusign Certificate. |
| 07/30/2025 | Requestor Correspondence (20 pages) |
| 07/30/2025 | Requestor Submission (4 pages) |
| 07/30/2025 | Requestor Correspondence (1 page) |
| 07/29/2025 | Agency Submission (3 pages) Part of this submission requests OOR to reject Mr. Long’s evidence regarding the attestation as a sanction, since Mr. Long, under penalty of perjury, filed a suspected forged attestation from Mr. Mark Saginario. Submission also requests OOR to consider referral to law enforcement. The Borough is also reviewing this matter for further criminal investigation. |
| 07/29/2025 | OOR Correspondence (1 page) |
| 07/28/2025 | Agency Correspondence (4 pages) Flynn files a Notice of False Swearing with OOR that Mr. Long is submitting sworn statements that are knowingly false with intent to deceive the Appeals Officer from performing an official function. |
| 07/28/2025 | Requestor Correspondence (1 page) Mr. Long files a DO NOT ACCEPT ATTESTATION. |
| 07/28/2025 | Requestor Submission (5 pages) Mr. Long is attempting to file a sworn attestation from Mr. Mark Saginario. Long filed the document 5 different times, on a closed record. Mr. Saginario’s attestation is highly irrelevant to the present case and contains false information. Borough learns on July 29, 2025, the alleged Mark Saginario attestation is a suspected forgery or false statement. The record is removed from OOR’s docket. |
| 07/28/2025 | Requestor Submission (17 pages) Mr. Long continues to submit filings on a closed record. |
| 07/25/2025 | Agency Submission (4 pages) |
| 07/24/2025 | Requestor Submission (562 pages) |
| 07/24/2025 | Agency Correspondence (1 page) Borough agrees to an extension of time for submissions. However, after the parties enter their submissions, no further records can be submitted to an otherwise closed record. |
| 07/24/2025 | Requestor Correspondence (1 page) Requestor claims to be working through 12 hours of computer issues, causing a delay in his filing. |
| 07/23/2025 | RECORD CLOSED [Requestor Michael Long has a repeated history of filing submissions on a closed record.] |
| 07/23/2025 | Agency Submission (8 pages) |
| 07/16/2025 | Entry of Appearance (1 page) |
| 07/16/2025 | Entry of Appearance Request (1 page) |
| 07/14/2025 | OOR Acknowledgement (7 pages) |
| 07/14/2025 | OOR Notice of Deadlines (1 page) |
| 07/11/2025 | Requester Appeal (28 pages) |
| 07/11/2025 | Requester Appeal (26 pages) |
| 07/11/2025 | Requester Appeal (2 pages) |
