A Virginia Court of Appeals ruled Augusta County will not have to pay over $20,000 in attorney’s fees to Breaking Through Media. Breaking Through Media LLC and Samuel Orlando previously sued Augusta County to obtain a recording of the March 20, 2023, Board of Supervisors closed session secretly recorded by Supervisor Scott Seaton. The closed session took place in the same meeting as the resignation of former supervisor Steve Morelli. The late response from the county would typically be enough of a violation of VFOIA for someone suing to be awarded attorney’s fees. However, this is primarily if the appellant “substantially prevails on the merits of the case.” Breaking Through Media argued the case was primarily about finding the county violated VFOIA. The county argued the primary purpose of the case was compelling the release of the recording. “This Court finds that the main object of appellants’ petition was to obtain documents requested under VFOIA that they believed the County wrongfully withheld,” reads the opinion. “Because appellants failed to obtain this recording, they did not obtain the object of their suit. The circuit court did not abuse its discretion in finding that appellants were not entitled to an award of attorney fees and costs,” reads the opinion.
Read the full opinion here.

Former state Sen. Brandon Bell and his wife, Deborah, defamed a Cave Spring High School student by accusing her in 2022 of sexually assaulting their daughter, a Roanoke County jury ruled after a three-day trial. The jury on Monday awarded $1 million to the former Cave Spring student, Hailey Lipscomb. The heart of the defamation claim was a July 2022 letter that Brandon Bell sent to then-county School Board Chairman David Linden and copied to other school board members. Penned on state Senate letterhead 14 years after Bell left office, the letter was also copied to the state superintendent of education, the state secretary of education and several members of the state legislature. Bell testified he believed the state officials needed to know about his daughter’s situation as an example of what he saw as misguided Cave Spring leadership.

Smithfield Town Manager Michael Stallings didn’t authorize or instruct Town Attorney William Riddick to increase the hourly rate his law firm charges taxpayers, Stallings told the Times on Aug. 22, breaking his weeklong silence on a question central to the growing controversy. Six of seven members who served on the Town Council in January 2024 have told the Times they were unaware of and didn’t authorize a 27% increase in Riddick & Pope, PC’s hourly rate that began that month and has continued for 18 months.The Times filed a Virginia Freedom of Information Act request for all “email correspondence and text messages between Mr. Riddick, town staff and/or Town Council members regarding the change in his hourly rate to $350 that occurred in January 2024.” To be all-encompassing of correspondence that might have occurred at the time, the request asked for correspondence from Jan. 1, 2023, to Feb. 29, 2024. Stallings responded that Isle of Wight County IT staff, who manage the town’s email server, “did a search of emails and found no emails that match your request.” “There have also been no text messages that match your request,” Stallings said.

Prince William County supervisors knew two years ago that newspaper ads announcing public hearings and votes on the Prince William Digital Gateway were flawed and twice considered postponing their votes to fix the problem – but decided not to. On Wednesday, Prince William County’s lawyers will go to court to ask Judge Kimberly Irving to place a stay on her Aug. 7 ruling that canceled the Prince William Digital Gateway over exactly that issue. Although the issue didn’t get a lot of attention at the time, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors were first alerted to the problems with the public notices – and the potential legal risks – as early as Nov. 30, 2023, nearly two weeks before the public hearings were held on the Digital Gateway. County Attorney Michelle Robl sent the supervisors an email that day, telling them the ads did not run in the Washington Post as planned and, as a result, there was “significant risk” that any rezoning decision could be challenged in court, according to an email obtained by the Prince William Times.

Since 2001, Richmond Public Schools officials have missed four federally mandated inspections for asbestos at Elizabeth D. Redd Elementary School, according to records obtained by The Times-Dispatch. Federal law dictates that public and private schools undergo asbestos inspections every three years. That would require nine inspections for Redd since 2001. Instead, the school has only been inspected five times since the turn of the century with substantial gaps in between, the records show.

The Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority will convene a special board meeting this morning at 8 a.m. to discuss a personnel matter in executive session, one day after Mayor Alyia Gaskins sent a letter on behalf of City Council demanding a third-party investigation into CEO Erik Johnson’s residency in public housing. In a four-page letter sent Tuesday to ARHA Board Chair Anitra Androh, Gaskins called for an independent investigation into three specific areas: Johnson’s actions, ARHA’s compliance with all applicable laws related to properties the authority owns and manages, and ARHA’s finances, including an independent financial audit. The letter includes multiple Freedom of Information Act requests and demands responses by the close of business Sept. 3. The special meeting was called Monday and will be held virtually only via Zoom, according to a public notice posted on the city’s calendar system. The session is scheduled to run until 10 a.m.

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares tried and failed to remove press from a campaign stop outside Charlottesville last week. And even after the press was admitted by the owner of the business hosting the stop, campaign staffers stood between journalists and the candidate, blocking their view.  Neither Miyares nor his team disclosed why, especially since the invitation was posted publicly, the business remained open to the public throughout the campaign stop and the gathering was held at a coffee shop that has become a regular campaign stop for Virginia Republicans where the press has been admitted in the past without hesitation.