The search of automatic license plate reader data conducted in Norfolk, while legitimately investigating a serious violation, illustrates how officers document their use of Virginia’s powerful and widespread surveillance system. A dozen officers may describe the same event in a dozen ways, or neglect to state a valid reason. The incomplete and imprecise reasons police cite leave lawmakers and the public unable to judge exactly how and why law enforcement is using the potent, new surveillance tool, critics say. … Virginia’s ALPR law mandates, among other things, that law enforcement agencies searching the ALPR system must report to the Virginia State Police “the specific purposes of the queries …and the offense types for any criminal investigation.” The law also limits data sharing outside of the state. But more than six months after Virginia lawmakers enacted the law, A VCIJ at WHRO analysis of 200,000 search logs from Flock Safety data between July 1, when the new law was enacted, to October 2025, shows that officers across the Commonwealth frequently relied on broad or vague justifications when searching the systems. The Flock data covered nearly 150 Virginia law enforcement agencies.

Saying she was blindsided by a vote recommending against placing police in elementary schools, a Loudoun County School Board member took the unusual step of making Freedom of Information Act requests of five fellow board members and their aides. … The requests concerned communications and records pertaining to a special board meeting March 5. The board voted at the meeting to recommend against expanding the school resource officer program from middle and high schools to elementary schools. The meeting was scheduled to make a recommendation before the Board of Supervisors met March 8 to decide whether to fund the expansion. Riccardi, who supports the expansion proposed by Loudoun Sheriff Mike Chapman, abstained from the vote. She contended the special meeting should only have been for a discussion, not a vote. … While the FOIA requests only involved Democratically-endorsed board members and their aides, Riccardi said in the statement that her motives were apolitical. “I followed the evidence of the vote. Not the party labels,” she said. “The question I am asking with these FOIA requests is simple: Are the next four years going to be conducted in public, on the record, with all nine members treated equally — or are four of us going to keep showing up to meetings where the outcome has already been decided behind closed doors?”

Last year, officials in the Richmond Fire Department spent $4,125,623 more than they were allocated under the city’s budget, according to City Hall’s annual financial report. They don’t know why or how it happened. … On Monday, a city spokesperson said she was not able to answer questions about the overage submitted by The Times-Dispatch on Friday. Those unanswered questions included whether spending by Reginald Thomas, a former management analyst for the fire department, had caused or contributed to the excess spending. The Times-Dispatch previously reported that Thomas had used city credit cards and purchase orders to spend more than $2 million at companies registered to himself and associates. Those transactions are the subject of an ongoing investigation by the city’s inspector general.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Bob Anderson is suing Purcellville Vice Mayor Carl “Ben” Nett and the town, bringing the total number of ongoing lawsuits related to the Town Council’s ongoing controversy to five. In his 33-page filing, Anderson alleges that Nett made false and defamatory statements in both his personal and professional capacities. Anderson said a grievance panel convened to review Nett’s termination from the Purcellville Police Department “insinuated” a relationship between Council Member Erin Rayner and Chief Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Nicole Wittmann resulted in flawed and political witch hunt that included Anderson’s decision to place Nett on his office’s Brady List of law enforcement officers deemed to lack credibility to testify in criminal cases. … Anderson’s suit claims that Nett was “angered” by his placement on the Brady List and “set out on a campaign to defame and discredit Anderson.”

The Town of Remington now has a master municipal clerk. The certification is the highest a clerk can receive from the International Institute of Municipal Clerks, and requires completing lengthy education requirements and contributing greatly to their local government and community. Rachael Brinson, the town’s administrator, was awarded the title on March 23. She is the first Remington clerk to hold the title and is one of only 43 master clerks in Virginia, according to the institute. … She is responsible for managing the town’s daily operations, budget and staff; advising the council on policy and other issues; keeping the town in compliance with local and state laws; enforcing town ordinances; and other executive tasks. But Brinson’s role as administrator goes far beyond her job description. She also handles the town’s water bills, its social media account, runs the town’s farmers market, sits on the planning commission and can still be found behind the DMV desk sometimes when it’s short-staffed.

Scottsville has been without a full-time town clerk for months, and no one will say why. The Virginia State Police has confirmed that Melodye Courter, the town’s last clerk, is under investigation, but the department also is keeping mum about what crime Courter is accused of committing. Scottsville, a town of roughly 500 residents on the James River in southern Albemarle County, employs just five full-time positions: a town administrator, a town clerk, a maintenance technician and two full-time police officers.

Aside from speculation and anonymously-sourced reports, the public may never know how much money South Carolina colleges are funneling to their athletes. On April 1, the S.C. Senate joined the House in overriding the governor’s veto, officially shielding universities’ revenue-sharing deals from public view. The Senate voted 30-12 in favor of overruling Gov. Henry McMaster, who quibbled with a broad carve-out in open records law that not only protected individual athletes’ revenue-sharing contracts but also how much public institutions are doling out to each sport. The state’s name, image and likeness (NIL) law will only allow colleges to share how much they disperse to all athletes in a given year, which was capped at $20.5 million in the 2025-26 fiscal year and will increase to $21.3 million in 2026-27.

In a finding that puts to rest months of partisan suspicion, the inspector general for the National Archives and Records Administration concluded that the improper release of New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s largely unredacted military records during last year’s governor’s race was the result of human error, not political design. While the disclosure of Sherrill’s personal information raised concerns because of the Privacy Act of 1974 and the Freedom of Information Act, investigators for the Archives’ watchdog found that the request submitted to the National Archives had been properly filed. The failure, they concluded, occurred later: an Archives technician released the records in error and did not adhere to established protocol.