Transparency News, 2/1/21

 

Several criminal justice reform bills are making their way through the General Assembly, including one dealing with police body camera footage. House Bill 1941, authored by Delegate Sam Rasoul, would require police officers to release audio and video recordings within 15 days of a violent incident. Specifically, this applies if an officer discharges their gun, uses a stun gun, or other chemical agent on a person and it results in serious bodily injury or death.
WAVY
NOTE: The bill will be heard in a House Appropriations subcommittee today, after the full House Appropriations Committee meeting, which starts at 1:00.

The Front Royal Warren County Economic Development Authority settled a civil dispute on Friday for $460,000 but with whom remains confidential. The EDA Board of Directors voted at a special meeting to adopt a resolution in which it states that the board reached a mediated settlement with a party for the amount. The terms of the settlement prohibit the parties from revealing any of its contents. EDA Board Chairman Jeff Browne said by phone after the meeting that he could neither disclose the name of the party nor could he identify any civil matter addressed in the settlement agreement. Virginia code allows and in fact encourages this information to remain confidential in these types of settlements.
The Northern Virginia Daily

A notice from the Richmond Electoral Board prompted the city’s top election official to send a plea to hundreds of people Thursday night, alerting them that she is in danger of losing her job. Jim Nachman, the board’s chairman, said in an interview Friday that he expects it will vote to remove General Registrar J. Kirk Showalter from office Monday. “It’s regrettable, but I think it’s something that needs to be done,” he said. In a phone interview Friday, Showalter said Nachman sent notice of the board’s intention to seek her removal last Saturday. She said they did not provide an explanation. The Democratic Party of Virginia sued Showalter just days before the election over her office’s response to a Freedom of Information Act request but later dropped the suit. Showalter said there was a communication error in her office, but party officials said she still failed on several counts.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

Virginia Beach has long been known as one of the safest cities for its size, but whenever there’s a spate of violence, worried citizens often take to social media to question whether crime is on the rise. Hopefully, all of that will be easier to determine through a new crime data system the city’s police chief unveiled this week. The system is called WAVES — Weekly Analysis for VBPD Engagement and Strategies — and is available on the police department’s website. WAVES provides statistics for four types of violent crimes and five categories of property crime. The violent crimes include homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. The property crime categories are commercial burglary, residential burglary, car theft, theft from cars, and all other thefts. Incident numbers for each category will be listed for the past 28 days, 91 days, and year to date. Comparisons to the same time period last year, as well as three-year averages, also will be provided. The information will be updated every week.
The Virginian-Pilot

 

The S.C. Court of Appeals has reversed a judgment from 2017 that Newberry County violated FOIA (The Freedom of Information Act) in failing to retain certain emails and text messages. Nick Nicholson, with Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd, P.A., said the ruling indicates what the county did in connection with this matter. “Newberry County produced over 2,000 pages of documents, I believe, certainly complied with the letter and spirit of FOIA. The fact that the county administrator’s computer crashed really doesn’t take away that they were extremely diligent producing documents pursuant to FOIA,” he said. “I don’t think this ruling changes the law, FOIA still requires that a public body produce documents that it has.” This case involved attorney Desa Ballard (who was representing a former part-time chief magistrate in Newberry County), according to the opinion written by Judge Blake A. Hewitt issued by the court, “After the county resolved a legal dispute with a different magistrate, the county eliminated a stipend for certain magistrates and began the process of doing away with part-time magistrate positions.” Ballard, during the course of that case, filed a FOIA request with Newberry County in December of 2014. Per the opinion, “she sought communications to and from the county administrator pertaining to magistrate positions over a roughly five year period.”
The Newberry Observer