Virginia Coalition for Open Government

Transparency News 11/10/14

Monday, November 10, 2014

State and Local Stories

VCOG announces its 2014 open government awards

City Councilman John Moss said local, state or federal law enforcement officers must step in and investigate whether Mayor Will Sessoms broke the law by repeatedly voting on issues affecting clients of TowneBank, where he serves as a president. Moss's reaction Saturday was the strongest on a day when fellow council members said they were stunned by a Pilot investigation that showed Sessoms voted at least 60 times on issues involving developers and businesses who had received at least $140 million in loans from the bank. State law prohibits officials from voting on issues in which they have a "personal interest," and Sessoms has filed several conflict-of-interest disclosures stating he has such an interest with TowneBank. "What the newspaper reported makes a prima facie case against the mayor, and that isn't going to just go away," Moss said Saturday. "Whether it is the federal prosecutor, the state attorney general or the commonwealth's attorney – or maybe all of them in some way – doesn't make a difference. Serious questions were raised, and they have to be answered. The facts presented are just too strong to ignore."
Virginian-Pilot

The details surrounding the recent arrest of a Smyth County Sheriff's Deputy continue to be withheld despite public records requests from News Channel 11. And both the arresting agency and the Smyth County Commonwealth Attorney say the withholding of even basic information from the incident report of the deputy's arrest is allowable under Virginia Law.  News Channel 11 submitted a public records request for the incident report from the Marion Police Department.  In response to a written FOIA request, Marion Police provided a copy of the incident report that showed Cline was arrested at a home on Dalton Street in Marion, the same street listed as the location of her residence.   The report said the incident happened on October 28th between 8:00 p.m. and 11:30 p.m.  The report said Cline was taken into custody by Marion Police and that a man was witness to the alleged criminal offense.    But all other information on the five page report was redacted from the documentincluding the entire incident report narrative, the portion of the report where the arresting officer records specifics about what led to the arrest and how the incident transpired.
WJHL

Disgraced former Albemarle Supervisor Christopher J. Dumler forfeited his law license ahead of a Virginia State Bar disciplinary hearing on his 2013 sex crime conviction, according to court records. Dumler signed an affidavit stating that if the disciplinary proceedings based on his misdemeanor sexual assault conviction were prosecuted, “he could not successfully defend them.”
Daily Progress

The Richmond Economic Development Authority will not say whether the $18.1 million, taxpayer-funded Stone Brewing project was awarded to the lowest bidder, or how local company Hourigan Construction won the deal. Even though the EDA has already voted to award the contract to Hourigan, it rejected a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Richmond Times-Dispatch to reveal all the bids it received for the Stone project, which includes a facility that will be designed and built using city money.The EDA said disclosure of the other bids could harm its negotiating position.
Times-Dispatch

Members of the Augusta County Board of Supervisors attending next week's Virginia Association of Counties annual conference will have a chance to learn about an interesting topic. The topic leading off Monday's panel discussions at The Homestead in Hot Springs is "School Board and Board of Supervisors relationships." That's a timely topic in Augusta County where the two boards are busy trying to strengthen their relationship and have scheduled individual one-on-one meetings with their counterparts. Ultimately, the two boards will have a joint meeting with several agenda topics, including whether to build a new Riverheads Elementary.
News Virginian

Wythe County’s deputy commonwealth’s attorney plans to ask the Virginia State Police to investigate a suspected email breach by Wythe County Administrator Cellell Dalton. Attorney David Saliba said that Dalton took copies of his emails from September without Saliba’s knowledge or permission. “It is a colossal invasion of privacy, not just for me but for all of the attorneys who had communication with me and all of the defendants whose information might have been in those emails,” Saliba said, adding that people who email attorneys expect the emails to remain private. “It’s a total abuse of power to suggest it, much less do it.” According to Saliba, the breach took place after he declined to prosecute Charles Riddle, owner of the Barren Springs Waterworks, who has been cited for violating state drinking water codes for years. Several days after Saliba told the court he was not going to prosecute, the county sent a Freedom of Information Act request to Wythe County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jerry Mabe asking for copies of all files and emails, including but not limited to emails between Mabe’s office and the state department of health, Virginia attorney general’s office and Dalton, letters and other documents related to the case of Commonwealth v. Charles V. Riddle. Agencies have five working days to respond to a FOIA request. Saliba said that on the same day the FOIA request was sent, Dalton instructed a member of the county’s information technology department to make copies of all of Saliba’s emails for the month of September, not just those related to the Riddle matter. When the office received the FOIA request, Dalton already had the emails, Saliba said, adding that because Dalton took all of his emails, he thinks the county administrator had another reason for asking for the emails. Saliba no longer uses the county’s email server. People who email him at the county’s email address get this message: Due to security issues, please delete my address of dssaliba@wytheco.org, as it is not secure and any emails you send to this address are not confidential.
Wytheville Enterprise
 
 
National Stories

The Labor Department’s latest job report on Friday depicted a bit of optimism for the recovering economy. The nation added an estimated 214,000 jobs in October, and revisions to previous months boosted the monthly average to 229,000 jobs gained so far this year. Meanwhile, the outlook for government employment has not improved much. While most other sectors added lost jobs, the public sector continues to act as a drag on economic growth. Local government employment climbed only half a percentage point over the past 12 months. At the state level, public employment totals remain nearly unchanged. 
Governing

A government watchdog will soon require the Treasury Department to investigate whether a top banking agency ignored ethics rules prohibiting federal officials from having a financial interest in the industries they regulate, according to documents obtained by POLITICO. The Office of Special Counsel, which handles claims from government whistleblowers, is preparing to send a letter to Treasury in the coming weeks detailing the allegations of an anonymous employee at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — which oversees the country’s biggest banks — who claims officials failed to enforce a key ethics requirement designed to prevent government conflicts of interest.
Politico

The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on a bill to update the Freedom of Information Act as one of its first items once lawmakers return to Washington next week. The committee is planning to vote on the FOIA Improvement Act on the morning of Nov. 13, it announced on Friday.
The Hill

Editorials/Columns

The Charlottesville Electoral Board has been exceedingly lenient toward Registrar Sheri Iachetta, who faces charges of misusing public funds as part of a history of lax attention to financial matters. And concerned members of the public have been exceedingly patient. That patience is at an end. The Electoral Board delayed a reckoning with Ms. Iachetta until after the November election. We’re not persuaded that was necessary, but we gave the board the benefit of the doubt. Now, however, board members are allowing Ms. Iachetta to stay in her job until the end of the year. That is unacceptable. Not only should the registrar leave immediately — so should the board members.
Daily Progress

Right now, it’s unclear whether homeless services – or even social services in general – are anywhere near the top of the Prince William Board of Supervisors’ to-do list. Instead, the board’s recent action to quietly restructure the chain-of-command of the social services department inspires more questions than confidence. Essentially, the vote stripped the appointed, all-volunteer Board of Social Services of its power to hire and fire a social services director. Instead, the power now resides with the elected supervisors — along with County Executive Melissa Peacor – making them directly accountable for fulfilling the county’s many responsibilities to our most vulnerable residents. The change was something board chairman Corey Stewart said was necessary to better manage the county’s social services efforts. The problem is that the board took that important vote without any prior notice. The matter was never posted on a board agenda or even discussed publicly before supervisors voted, over the protestations of Supervisor Frank Principi.
InsideNOVA