Blogs

There were two stories last week in the Daily Press about the Hampton City Council and its efforts to reduce the cost of public meetings.

The first story, “Hampton City Council may ditch the costly paper agendas,” sets us up, telling us that it costs an average of $1,500 to print agendas for council meetings, with a meeting in early May costing $4,145.

It was a cruel spring at Mr. Jefferson’s University. In what should have been a time of flowering dogwoods and days of hope and promise for the future, the University of Virginia found itself in the midst of two issues of national interest, and both including a transparency element.

The first, and most regrettable, is the murder of UVA women’s lacrosse player Yeardley Love, presumably at the hands of men’s lacrosse player, George Huguely.

VCOG was pleased to play host yesterday, May 22, to David Cuillier’s Access Across America tour. Forty citizens, private investigators and print and broadcast journalists signed up to spend their Saturday afternoon hearing Cuillier deliver a lively presentation on the power of public records and strategies for getting them.

The Society of Professional Journalists and the National FOI Coalition are sponsoring Cuillier’s roadshow, which, to date, has hit 17 states, and has something like 15 more to go.

In today’s troubled economic times, it’s not hard to understand the sense of nervous excitement generated by the prospect of a new business locating in the area or of an existing business expanding: jobs, tax revenue, community involvement, stability.

If there were ever any doubt, see the crushing flip side of this when, say, the paper mill in Franklin County closed down earlier this year.

In an excellent editorial published in late April, the Daily Press criticized the Hampton City Council’s recent changes to the citizen comment period of public meetings.

The Daily Press didn’t fault the city for wanting to improve the meetings’ efficiency, or to eliminate personal attacks or the rehashing of past decisions. The newspaper’s complaint instead was this: “governing bodies that don’t engage the public during the public input parts of their meetings.”

Prince William County resident Mark Hjelm finally got his day in court April 14. And it was a pretty good day.

The aftermath, well, that’s not so pretty.

Hjelm has been locked in battle with the Prince William County School system for the past few years over Hjelm’s FOIA request to view visitor log data from the district’s Raptor visitor-identification system.

FOIA isn't something most people think about day in and day out. I remember the Virginia FOIA Council's Maria Everett once saying something to the effect of, "No one grows up wanting to be a FOIA geek." True that.

But it is funny to me, as a card-carrying FOIA geek, how FOIA suddenly becomes the best friend of elected officials when they realize it can be used to perhaps gore the other side's ox.