AUGUSTA COUNTY – A judge ruled Sept. 7 that the Augusta County Board of Equalization violated FOIA's meeting provisions in 2008 when it posted a note on the door to the main meeting room instructing citizens to "please wait here until your case is called." The judge also instructed the county to lower Thomas Cline's assessment and refund him the difference. The county took the admirable step of holding a refresher session on FOIA for members of various boards. FOIA requires board members to familiarize themselves with FOIA, but because the law changes each year and because new members may simply go along with outdated traditions, regular training is essential.
CHESTERFIELD – Despite the massive failure of VITA's central computers in early September, Virginia has been drawing praise for its IT-savvy from the Center for Digital Government. Chesterfield County's website received the CDG's Best of the Web award for a county its size, while Virginia received an A- in the center's 2010 Digital States Survey. Only two states received an A, and only one other state received an A-.
GLOUCESTER – In a state-by-state rating of government websites, the Washington, D.C.,-based Sunshine Review gave Gloucester an A+ on transparency, along with neighboring York County and Arlington County. The review used a 10-point transparency checklist that included online availability of budgets, meetings, audits, contracts, taxes and other public records.
HAMPTON – The Hampton City Council used the contract negotiations exemption to discuss whether to give city workers gift cards to be used at a particular Hampton shopping center. Council members then took pot shots at one another for disclosing the closed-door discussions to the public, the Daily Press reported. The city eventually dropped the idea.
RICHMOND – A George Mason University professor's grant work on climate change is not "public business" for purposes of subjecting the professor's records to Virginia's FOIA, says the Virginia FOIA Council. The opinion also says there's no standard for determining whether an adequate search for records has been performed. "The law never presumes that a man will violate the law."
RICHMOND – As Virginia Commonwealth University President Michael Rao's performance was being reviewed by the school's board of trustees just 16 months into his tenure, the Richmond Times-Dispatch uncovered a confidentiality agreement those who work closely with Rao were required to sign. Unique among other publicly funded universities subject to Virginia's FOI Act, the agreement prohibited staffers from talking about what they have observed of Rao and his family. Though supportive of Rao's tenure so far, the Times-Dispatch took Rao to task over the agreement. Lamenting that the agreements were "misinterpreted in terms of what I sought to be accomplished," the president rescinded them early December.
RICHMOND – An hour before the state government provided the Richmond Times-Dispatch with a list of state employees' salaries, Virginia Secretary of Administration Lisa Hicks-Thomas sent an e-mail to all state employees alerting them to the release of information, which is mandatory for employees earning over $10,000 per year. "We apologize for any inconvenience the mandatory compliance with this request may cause," Hicks-Thomas wrote. The paper was then flooded with phone calls from employees concerned about their salaries being made public.
RICHMOND – The Virginia Judicial Council recommended
the adoption of a rule on juror privacy that leaves the matter largely to the discretion of the trial judge rather than having jurors in criminal cases identified only by number as a matter of course. The rule now tracks the language of legislation passed in 2008. A Supreme Court advisory committee originally recommended closing off access to juror information in all criminal cases, a measure that was opposed by the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, the Virginia Press Association, the ACLU and others.
ROANOKE – The Roanoke Times won a FOIA lawsuit against the City of Radford to gain access to past FOIA requests. The city originally turned over some of the records in full, but redacted others, saying they were personnel records because they were filed by a city employee. The paper sought the records in 2008 after learning that the city's spokesperson at the time filed a FOIA request for a city investigative report about a harassment complaint.
WILLIAMSBURG – The College of William and Mary's Student Assembly passed the FOIAs for All act at a meeting in November. The act earmarks $10,000 from the assembly consolidated reserve fund for funding Freedom of Information Act requests by students. For students to gain access to the funds, their requests must be heard by the student senate's policy committee, which will decide how much of the requests to subsidize. Students can also use this for reimbursement for FOIA requests.