Transparency News 5/20//13

FOIA Council: The two subcommittees of the FOIA Council will both TODAY, in the Fifth Floor East Conference Room of the General Assembly Building, 201 N. 9th Street, Richmond, Virginia  23219.

The Electronic Meetings Subcommittee will meet at 1:30 PM.  As a reminder, the Electronic Meetings Subcommittee will study HB 2032 (May – electronic meetings & regional bodies) and SB 889 (Black – electronic meetings and school boards).  The Subcommittee consists of Council members Kathleen Dooley, Stephanie Hamlett, John Selph, and George Whitehurst.

FOIA Council opinion AO-03-13: A motion to convene a closed meeting must identify the subject to be discussed, the purpose of the discussion, and cite an appropriate exemption. There are two requirements set forth in the exemption allowing public bodies to hold closed meetings to discuss real property matters: (1) that the discussion concern the acquisition of real property for a public purpose, or the disposition of publicly held real property, and (2) that discussion in an open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body.

Roanoke Times: The state’s open government law doesn’t apply to Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, his office says, elaborating on responses to requests for public records connected with a company whose CEO gave $35,000 in gifts to Cuccinelli and Gov. Bob McDonnell. The office says the Freedom of Information Act doesn’t apply to it because the office is established by the Virginia Constitution and is not therefore a “public body” as defined by the act.
Washington Post: Virginia Attorney Gen. Ken T. Cuccinelli (R) has asserted that the state’s freedom of information laws do not apply to the Office of the Attorney General, a break from past practice. While Cuccinelli’s office has continued to respond to requests for documents under the law — which says that except in certain instances, all records of public bodies should be accessible to the public — it has begun to insert new language into its responses citing a 2011 Virginia Supreme Court case to support the claim that the law does not apply to the office.

Daily Press: Isle of Wight Board of Supervisors Chairwoman JoAnn Hall said Friday that the board will discuss Monday how to proceed in response to complaints about Vice Chairman Byron "Buz" Baileyforwarding emails that contained racist content to some supervisors and county staff. The emails were made public Thursday.

Daily Press: When Hampton's clerk of circuit court, Linda Batchelor Smith, was at a clerk's conference last summer, she learned about a new system for accepting marriage license applications. A clerk from another jurisdiction "was just praising the system" to the hilt, she said. That is, instead of being handed a paper form to fill out — with a court clerk having to then manually type that information into the computer — the marrying couple sits down at a computer kiosk and enters the information themselves. When Smith returned from the conference last August, she asked the Virginia Supreme Court's executive secretary's office — which runs the state court system — to get the kiosks in Hampton. It was finally delivered and installed two weeks ago. Smith said the Hampton Circuit Court is among the first three courts in Virginia to get the new system. Better yet, she said, there's no charge to Hampton to get it.

Roanoke Times: Three out of four groups registered with Adopt-A-Highway in Virginia didn’t report collecting any trash last year, state records show. That’s possibly why there was an empty plastic motor-oil bottle on the side of Buck Mountain Road recently, 500 feet east of a blue Adopt-A-Highway marker that reads “Roanoke County Democratic Committee.” The Democrats withdrew from the program and quit collecting trash three or four years ago. The sign seen by 5,000 vehicles a day? A loose end that the state highway department hasn’t gotten around to removing. Adopt-A-Highway is in disarray in Virginia. Its records are lousy; the state isn’t sure how many signs are standing, let alone whether there is an active volunteer group working the adjacent highway or how to get in touch with it.

WRIC: When it comes to risk of corruption, Virginia ranks as one of the nation's worst states. The problem is largely due to a lack of public access to government information. Now, a state lawmaker is pushing to make one of Virginia's most important agencies Follow Freedom of Information Act laws—it's the same agency 8News has continued to investigate for waste and violations of state law. Virginia's State Corporation Commission is exempt from state sunshine laws—laws that watch-dog journalists and concerned members of the public use to gain access to information that reveals how state leaders are doing business.

National Stories

The Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general will review claims the Environmental Protection Agency refuses to waive public records fees for conservative groups while granting the waivers for environmental organizations. Acting Administrator Robert Perciasepe asked the agency’s inspector general to review claims after GOP lawmaker accusations of a double standard.
The Hill

A conservative watchdog group has filed suit in Federal court in an effort to obtain records on the costs of President Obama's vacations in Hawaii.  The group Judicial Watch said it filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., against the U.S. Secret Service. The suit seeks "all records concerning use of U.S. Government funds to provide security and/or other services to President Obama and any companions on their January 1 and 2, 2013, trip to Honolulu, Hawaii."
HawaiiNewsNow.com

Department of Homeland Security officials are refusing to release immigration documents for ­Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, citing the agency’s ongoing investigation into the Boston Marathon bombing allegedly carried out by the Chechen brothers. Both the Boston Globe newspaper and nonprofit watchdog Judicial Watch have requested immigration records and other records related to the bombings through Freedom of Information Act requests.
The Examiner

Reporters Committee and 42 news organizations argue that New York law should protect reporter in Colorado shooting case. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, joined by 42 other news organizations and associations, argued in a friend-of-the-court brief that a New York court should not have allowed a Colorado subpoena to be served on a Fox News reporter in the Auroro, Colo., shooting case, because New York's strong public policy of protecting reporters' sources would not be satisfied under Colorado law.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

A federal appeals court is weighing the constitutionality of a Delaware law allowing chancery judges to oversee secret arbitration in high-stakes business disputes. A three-judge panel of the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Thursday in a lawsuit filed by the Delaware Coalition for Open Government, or DelCOG, which claims the law is unconstitutional. The panel gave no timeframe for its ruling.
First Amendment Center

Iowa lawmakers are grasping at adjournment and a slate of top-flight bills remain undone, but you wouldn’t know it if you walked into the Capitol this morning. The House will gavel in this afternoon for a perfunctory and sure-to-be poorly attended session, while Senate lawmakers aren’t even scheduled to reconvene until Tuesday. The slow-down in visible progress is evidence of late-stage deal-making happening almost entirely behind closed doors in the Statehouse.
Des Moines Register

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder's administration has claimed the once-secret "skunk works" education reform project was not a government-sanctioned work group, but newly obtained administration correspondence suggests otherwise. Emails obtained by The Detroit News through the Freedom of Information Act show at least three top Snyder aides were aware that a Department of Technology, Management and Budget official was forming the work group, just as the Republican governor was eyeing major changes to Michigan's public education system.
The Detroit News

Editorials/Columns

Roanoke Times: Roanoke City Council ordinarily leaves no navel ungazed upon when deciding even the nit-pickiest of issues. For substantial decisions, months drag by in briefings and meetings that offer ample opportunity for all to be heard. So it is astounding that council initially failed to consider that the public might have something to say about the 28.5 percent raises the majority wishes to grant itself.

Roanoke Times: Embarrassed by revelations of his administration’s flagrant intrusion into press freedoms, President Obama last week sought to squelch the bad publicity with an announcement that he still supports long­dormant legislation establishing a federal shield law. The law, which would protect reporters from being forced to reveal confidential sources, is worth resuscitating. But it’s a tattered and inadequate fig leaf for the embattled president.The proposed law is riddled with loopholes, and it’s impossible to assess whether it would have prevented the Department of Justice from snooping through journalists’ phone records because administration officials have refused to discuss how they obtained subpoenas in secret.

News & Advance: The press, as an institution, and journalists, as individuals, have no real friends in America. And that’s the way it should be. It’s our job to serve as a watchdog of government on behalf of the public. At the same time, we don’t give the public what it wants to read or view … we inform the public on issues of importance, great and small, that may delight or infuriate but about which they need to know.