Transparency News, 6/10/20

Legislators disclosed free meals and receptions totaling more than $12,000 during the 2020 General Assembly session. Half of the 140 lawmakers reported at least one gift valued at more than $50.
Virginia Public Access Project

The Prince William Board of County Supervisors has found itself in a partisan fight over meetings, both public and behind closed doors. The disagreement appears to have started with individual supervisors trying to respond to protests held in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis. It became more complicated with a closed-door session to review Freedom of Information Act laws with the county attorney — a meeting opposed by the board’s three Republicans, who refused to participate. Five members of the Prince William board attended a community meeting May 31 on use of police force during a Manassas-area protest the previous evening. The three supervisors who weren’t invited, all Republicans, are upset that the Democrats attended the event.
InsideNoVa

The city of Williamsburg tested 199 city employees for the coronavirus on May 14 but it remains unclear how many employees tested positive. Officials declined to release that information. “The City isn’t disclosing the results of an employee’s test as it is a personnel matter,” Steve Roberts Jr., the city’s interim spokesman, wrote in a text message Monday afternoon.
WYDaily

The Isle of Wight County School Board will have its Thursday meeting in the cafeteria at Westside Elementary School, Smithfield. According to spokeswoman Lynn Briggs, the meetings will be streamed live through the division’s Facebook and YouTube page to allow for an audience while adhering to social distancing guidelines. The public can attend the meeting at the school in limited capacity. However, the meeting will not have an opportunity for in-person public comment. Anyone wishing to have remarks heard during the citizens comments section of the meeting can email their written comments. Mailed remarks must be received by Tuesday, the week of the board meeting. Emailed remarks must be received by noon the day of the meeting.
The Tidewater News
 

 

New York lawmakers voted on Tuesday to repeal a decades-old law that shields police officers’ disciplinary records from the public. The bill is part of a package of police reform measures advanced by the Democratic-controlled Assembly and Senate in Albany this week as protests gripped the nation following the death of George Floyd, a black man, as a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck. New York police unions have called the legislation an attack on police.
Reuters

On May 22, Delaware Representative John A. Kowalko introduced a bill that would remove an exemption in Delaware’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for both the University of Delaware and Delaware State University (DSU). The Delaware Freedom of Information Act, first established in 1977, is a series of laws guaranteeing that the public has access to the records of public bodies. Public bodies are any entity or body that is supported in whole or in part by any public funds. Since 2008, the state has allocated more than $1 billion in the budget to the two colleges — more than $830 million for the university and more than $245 million to DSU. Under the current definition of public bodies, this would make both universities subject to FOIA. However, only the universities’ boards of trustees are subject to FOIA, while the rest of the institutions’ activities, records and meetings are exempt and may be denied to the public.
The Review

Records that could reveal whether there was any wrongdoing by Palm Beach prosecutors in their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case will remain sealed, at least for now, a judge has ruled. Palm Beach County Circuit Court Chief Judge Krista Marx dismissed portions of a lawsuit filed by the Palm Beach Post that sought release of the 2006 state grand jury probe into Epstein’s sex crimes. In her Monday order, Marx concluded that the Post had no standing to demand that the state attorney, Dave Aronberg, or the county clerk, Sharon Bock, unseal the documents. Rather, it should have sought a court order — which would mean that Marx, as chief judge, could be the final arbiter of whether the public will ever know how and why Epstein got special treatment in Palm Beach County.
McClatchy

 

It was the end of March, and I had just put my two boys to bed. My phone was ringing in my pocket, but I didn’t care who it was — we were two and a half weeks into quarantine and the new reality was sinking in. The person on the phone was calling to warn me: The police for Liberty University, the private evangelical college in southern Virginia, had gone to the authorities and had a warrant for my arrest for trespassing.
Julia Rendleman, The New York Times