Transparency News, 7/27/21

If there’s a shooting in your neighborhood, would you want to know about it? Unless a shooting in Norfolk rises to a certain level of significance, police will not alert the media. That means we can’t pass along the information to you. Under the policy for example, if there’s a shooting and no one was killed or critically wounded, Norfolk police will not notify the media. If we already know about it through other means — say, a tip from a viewer — we can then ask police for more information. But often when we ask for more information, we get a delayed response. In Hampton and Virginia Beach, a shooting victim doesn’t have to have life-threatening injuries. Suffolk and Portsmouth police enable dispatchers when the public information officer is unavailable. Chesapeake has an on-call PIO to release information after hours.
WAVY

About 70 miles west of Charlottesville, a tiny town called Goshen wants to put Charlottesville’s now infamous Confederate monuments on display in front of its new community center.  Goshen’s request is one of 32 that Charlottesville City Manager Chip Boyles received between June 7 and July 21 from people and entities who wish to take ownership of the city’s now-removed statues of Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.  More requests may yet arrive. The city has extended the time period during which it will accept statements of interest. State law only required they accept such offers until July 7.
Charlottesville Tomorrow

Washington County School Board member Terry Fleenor announced his resignation late Sunday, nearly a week after a contentious board meeting that included discussion of transgender issues. At that meeting, dozens of people spoke against possible policy changes designed to be more inclusive of transgender students. The Virginia General Assembly passed a law in 2020 requiring that inclusive policies be in place in school systems across the state by this fall. During the public comments section of the School Board meeting, Fleenor objected to an audience member calling Gov. Ralph Northam “Beelzebub” — another name for Satan. Fleenor, 65, made a point of order, asking that the comment be stricken from the record. Yet audience members shouted back “freedom of speech” and “First Amendment.” Fleenor asked Sheriff Blake Andis for his opinion on whether some comments were “slander.” But Andis replied, “You don’t want to ask me.”
Bristol Herald Courier

Fairfax County Public Schools has been releasing confidential student information for years without the permission from students to do so. That was the claim made in a story on Special Education Action, a website dedicated to informing parents about their rights in public school systems such as Fairfax particularly in the area of special education. The article, written by the site’s editor Callie Oettinger, discusses how the school system may have violated rules under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).  The revelation came when Oettinger received a thumb drive from FCPS with documents that were in response to a FERPA request she had made. That drive contained 12 unredacted reports with personally identifiable information related to students and their families. Oettinger makes it clear in her story that she did not request these documents. 
Fairfax Times
 

Craig Mauger is a state government reporter for The Detroit News based in Lansing. He says he has a request in for state documents related to Michigan nursing homes during the pandemic that he submitted in July 2020 — over a year ago. He still does not have those documents. He also requested emails from Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Elizabeth Hertel from the day she started in that position.  Mauger says it’s a serious issue in a state that has for years scored among the lowest states in the country for government transparency. And he says the problem is only getting worse since the beginning of the pandemic.
WDET

The 2021 Indicators Report compiled by Pennsylvania’s Institute for Public Policy and Economic Development at Wilkes University, shows that civic engagement is an important aspect of community development and includes a variety of metrics that identify how connected residents are with political systems (voting), nonprofits, and general community assets (libraries). “Many of these things cannot be measured,” said Teri Ooms, executive director at The Institute. “However, for those we can measure, The Institute prepared a summary of findings.”
Governing