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All Access
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Follow the bills we follow. VCOG’s annual bill chart is up and running
and will be updated daily throughout the legislative session.
Click here
The Senate General Laws Committee refused to advance a bill proposed by VCOG, carried by Del. Marcus Simon (chair of the FOIA Council), and which passed the House unanimously. The bill clarifies existing law that when a person files a petition to enforce FOIA rights in general district court, they do not have to get a sheriff or some other party to “serve” the government defendant. FOIA does not require formal service, but in the past two years, some judges have dismissed cases for not doing so. Despite the fact that the relevant section of FOIA has been on the books for 15 years, general counsel for the Office of the Attorney General objected to the bill, saying it offended notions of a court’s jurisdiction over the government. The bill will go to the FOIA Council, leaving citizens vulnerable for at least another year to a judge who might impose this obstacle to citizen FOIA suits. HB159
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General Assembly
Members of the Virginia General Assembly are considering a bill aimed at preventing local governments from making last-minute changes to their agendas. Imagine a scenario where a school board makes a last minute addition to their agenda, one that gives a significant raise to their superintendent. Perhaps they keep the addition to the agenda hush hush until the meeting has already started. That’s the kind of behavior that former Senator Adam Ebbin wanted to crack down on when he introduced one of his final bills earlier this year. “It seeks to prevent rushed decisions by restricting final actions on items added after a meeting has started while still allowing last minute administrative decisions,” Ebbin said.
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General Assembly
The Virginia General Assembly will pass hundreds of bills this year, but one that’s being hailed as the ‘bill of the year’ by some advocates will likely fly under your radar. Writing bills to be correctly interpreted by judges or others in the future isn’t easy, and the use of one word in bill writing is finally getting the attention many say is long overdue. “Not many bills have their own banners, and so this banner was hanging on the secretary’s desk,” said Virginia Coalition for Open Government president Megan Rhyne describing why she was attracted to the banner -and the bill- in question. HB1299 defines the word “shall” in state code to mean something is mandatory, not just “directory,” or a suggestion.
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Local
“I can’t see this continuing in a productive manner.” That’s what Frederick County Planning Director Wyatt Pearson said amid outcries from audience members during the county’s first Public Information & Engagement Forum on data centers, which was held Tuesday night at Sherando High School. Numerous attendees interrupted the question-and-answer portion of the nearly two-hour event, expressing anger and disappointment with the forum’s structure and responses from panelists regarding potential data center impacts on the community. County staff intended to only answer questions that were submitted online in advance or given to staff during the forum, but many audience members didn’t like that arrangement and yelled comments and questions from their seats instead. Multiple times, County Administrator Michael Bollhoefer asked Frederick County Sheriff’s Office deputies to escort audience members from the audience for repeatedly interrupting.
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Local
Friction from a comment made by Hopewell’s interim city manager about residents questioning last September’s City Council retreat “if they dare” was evident in council’s Feb. 24 meeting, as Michael Rogers apologized to both councilors and citizens for his choice of words. Rogers’ apology closed out the meeting after many of the citizens who took him to task for his Feb. 10 remark had already left the council chambers. One of those citizens was removed from the chambers by security during the meeting’s public-comment period after Mayor Johnny Partin Jr. repeatedly attempted to tell her she had gone beyond the three-minute time allotment. Several citizens used that public-comment period to again call out Rogers for what they perceived was his unprofessionalism in addressing questions at the Feb. 10 council meeting about the $17,000 cost of a retreat at the Kingsmill resort in Williamsburg last September. They said that Hopewell was too fiscally strapped to spend that much and could have saved time and money by holding the retreat in the city. … “The citizens can object to that retreat continuously, if they dare, if they want to,” Rogers said at that Feb. 10 meeting.
The Progress-Index
VCOG’s annual FOI awards nomination form is open.
Nominate your FOIA hero!
“Democracies die behind closed doors.” ~ U.S. District Judge Damon Keith, 2002
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