The [Richmond mayor’s office] said at the hearing that [three] employees would use their “subject matter expertise” to determine whether a record already released through a FOIA request could be posted on the FOIA Library. There are more than 5,500 FOIA requests each year, the administration said, and it would take these subject matter experts 30 minutes to an hour to review each request for inclusion in the library.1 Keep in mind: these are records that have already been released under FOIA. These are records that have already been made public. Public, maybe, to a single individual, but public nonetheless. Records released under FOIA do not come with a sticker saying they can’t be shared, publicized, copied, distributed, posted or thrown away. The release is the endpoint for the FOIA transaction.
The Norfolk School board is scheduled to vote Monday on an aggressive plan that would close eight buildings by the end of the 2027 school year. The revised option was made public on Saturday. David Sturtz, the system’s closings consultant, outlined the option in a memo to the board after a facilities and planning committee meeting on Zoom last Wednesday. Richard Fraley, Norfolk Public Schools’ chief operations officer, also worked on the plan. There will not be a public comment period before any vote on Monday. Wednesday’s committee meeting was not announced to the public. This second last-minute proposal in a month upset parents.
Henry County (Mississippi) Board of Supervisors member Chad White said turning his county-issued laptop over for repair to the same county employee who has submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to view the entire contents of the laptop doesn’t sit well with him. During the regular weekly meeting of the Henry County Board of Supervisors Thursday, White said his laptop isn’t working and won’t allow him to access his county email account. He is reticent to turn it over to county Information Technology director Derek Wellington for a fix. White and Supervisor Steve Detrick’s laptop have both been the subject of a FOIA request by Wellington.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., called for a criminal investigation into the National Archives after the agency accidentally released an unredacted copy of Rep. Mikie Sherrill’s military record. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., is the Democratic nominee for governor, running against Republican Jack Ciattarelli. The National Archives is currently being run by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The National Archives apologized, saying a technician mistakenly released the record in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
