Newsletter

FOIA “A SERVICE,” BUSH REAFFIRMSIn a move that took many by surprise, President George W. Bush signed an executive order Dec. 14 aimed at improving disclosure of information under the federal Freedom of Information Act. Under the executive order, U.S. agencies are required within 30 days to designate a senior official as chief FOIA officer,…

  Henrico citizens now have easy access to criminal-incident information, arrest reports and other crime data.The information is online at: http://www.co.henrico.va.us/police .To search arrests, the citizen types in a specific date or a range of dates. To narrow a search, a crime category can be selected.Mel Solomon, who leads a neighborhood watch group, said they now…

  CHESTERFIELD COUNTY — Public speakers must stick to the matter at hand when addressing the board of supervisors. Otherwise, the chairman can call a recess and tell the speaker to sit down. When all else fails, the sheriff’s deputies get called in. So far, so good — maybe — if applied in an even-handed way,…

  For years, Virginia Port Authority board members have guarded the salaries of top officials at Virginia International Terminals, which runs state terminals in Norfolk, Portsmouth and Newport News.Though the compensation of state employees who make more than $10,000 is public record under the state’s Freedom of Information Act, VIT claimed it was a private company,…

  POLICE DEPARTMENT ENTERS “21ST CENTURY”Not all that long ago, getting information from the Danville Police Department about crimes and criminals was extremely difficult. The Danville Register and Bee commented editorially that the department was not only famously tight-lipped about the amount of information it released to the public, it strictly controlled access to its officers.…

NGOs, say more!Secretive non-government organizations that rely on significant public funding continue to pose knotty access issues. In Richmond, the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation had to be pressured into giving Richmond’s Mayor Doug Wilder (and others) a detailed monthly financial report. Auditors suggested that the foundation be required to provide a monthly balance sheet and…

  ROANOKE, ROANOKE COUNTY CITEDThe Roanoke Valley continues to get national recognition for its high-tech initiatives. For the fourth time in five years. Roanoke City ranked first among cities in the 75,000-124,999 population category. And for the second year running, Roanoke County was named the most high-tech county for its size. The evaluations came in the…

  Since the August 2005 newsletter, the FOI Advisory Council issued just four formal, written opinions.Reaffirming its revised opinion on access to accident reports containing information about juveniles, the council in AO-08-05 told the public relations director for the Department of State Police that other than information falling under §2.2-3706(C) of the Freedom of Information Act,…

  www.opengovva.org is packed with new features and the best collection of public-access-related resources.The Coalition officially unveiled its newly designed Web site at its seventh annual conference Nov. 18 in Lexington.Designed by Kathy Cashel of Washington, D.C., and funded by a grant from the National Freedom of Information Coalition and the John S. and James L.…

The Virginia Coalition for Open Government has created what it hopes will be only the first of several editions of the "Citizens’ Pocket Guide to Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act." The guide is a concise summary of the FOI law written in ordinary language, broken down into five sections: • The Virginia Freedom of Information…

ENDOWMENT GIFTS PASS $330,000 MARKThanks to a $200,000 challenge grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, VCOG may soon realize its dream of a half-million-dollar endowment fund.In recognition of VCOG’s open-government work, the Knight Foundation approved a 1:1 match, up to $200,000, to create the Coalition’s first endowment. The fund-raising effort got…

  The General Assembly’s Joint Committee Studying the Public Records Act wrapped up its two-year study in November with a spiffy revision to a statute that had not been seriously updated since it was first passed 30 years ago.Many of the amendments added over the years had grown obsolete; others create internal and external inconsistencies; and…

Legislatures have a habit of writing open-government loopholes for themselves, especially when they’re striking last-minute deals or forcing party-line votes. Not all do it so blatantly as New Mexico, however.There, the Open Meetings Act requires that “all meetings of any public body except the legislature and the courts shall be public meetings.” The state Association…

Calling it a “historic change” for his country, President Vicente Fox signed his country’s first FOI law. The new law guarantees citizen access to nearly all federal government information. It also establishes a Federal Institute for Access to Public Information. The agency will aid information-seekers, train citizens and public officials, and produce an annual report…

Georgia’s 18,000 police officers are getting a 38-page booklet that “very plainly” explains that law enforcement records are subject to public disclosure unless specifically exempted from release.The Georgia First Amendment Foundation, the state press association and seven government organizations produced the booklet, “Georgia Law Enforcement and the Open Records Act.” The guide was produced after…

Access to public information got a strong re-endorsement from Florida voters Nov. 5. In the future, each house of the state legislature must muster a two-thirds vote before adding new open-government exemptions.This is not the first time Florida’s voters have spoken out strongly for transparent government. A decade ago, voters overwhelmingly passed a Public Records…

The national project to create a model guideline for access to electronic records released its final report Oct. 18, 2002. The policy is online at http://www.courtaccess.org/modelpolicy.The project, spearheaded by the National Center for State Courts’ Arlington office and the Justice Management Institute, was officially presented on behalf of the Conference of Chief Justices and the…