Summer 2007 Newsletter, Vol. 11, No. 2


  • Legislature 2007, aka it could’ve been worse

    By Frosty Landon, Former VCOG executive directorVirginia’s state legislators want us to believe there’s more openness than ever before in the “oldest continuous law-making body in the New World.”It’s hard to argue the point. A generation ago, whole committees still met secretly — so secretly, in fact, that even legislators themselves could not find out…


  • Meet VCOG’s new exec. director

    By Bill Atkinson, Virginia Press AssociationWho would have thought that “the Grim Reaper” would have such a positive vocal tone?Jennifer L. Perkins, who spent four years on Capitol Hill as assistant and counsel to two senators, is the new executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government.Perkins, who assumed her new duties July 1,…


  • VCOG Bulletin Board

    Hopkins named VCOG president; Moncure fills McMasters vacancyDr. Wat Hopkins (left), professor of mass communications at Virginia Tech, is the new president of Virginia’s Coalition for Open Government, succeeding Paul McMasters.McMasters retired this year, after serving as First Amendment Ombudsman for the Freedom Forum. He served four years as VCOG’s president.Tom Moncure, a former Stafford…


  • FOI Advisory Council updates

    by Megan RhyneThough many thought that the compromise hammered out by a FOI Advisory Council subcommittee last summer on electronic meetings was to be the last word on the subject for at least a few legislative sessions, several bills seeking to relax the rules even further were introduced during the ’07 session.The evolution of the…


  • FOI Advisory Council updates (opinions)

    by Matt Haynes, VCOG InternThe Freedom of Information Advisory Council has issued six opinions from January to early July. The opinions addressed a variety of issues, including the ability of a public body to close meetings, to charge for redactions, and to refuse to disclose certain portions of an electronic mail message.AO-01-07 answered a question…


  • Training is everything

    by Megan RhyneIn February an Albemarle County resident contacted the Coalition for help getting the accident report for an incident involving her parked car and a drunken driver. Though she knew the driver was eventually arrested, the resident wanted to know the driver’s name, the charge filed against him and/or the court date.She called the…


  • E-gov briefs

    Poquoson, James City County, Hampton offer good Web sitesDaily Press editorialThe Internet is a great tool for keeping up with government, and keeping an eye on what it’s up to. Specifically, it can be a great way to find out what your local governing body – city council or board of supervisors – is getting…


  • FOIA in the courts

    Two long-simmering FOIA cases came to an end since the last issue of NEWS.In mid-January, Culpeper County agreed to pony up $93,000 in legal fees to the lawyers for Virginia’s press, who won a unanimous Virginia Supreme Court ruling against the county.The county board of supervisors begrudgingly approved the payment on Jan. 16. Despite the…


  • FOI Complaints

    BEDFORD COUNTY — Just a few months before voters would elect a new member of the board of supervisors, the sitting supervisors slammed the door on their deliberations to name an interim member. A dozen citizens stepped forward to fill the seat, but the board shut the public out of the process. For several days,…


  • Kudos

    Poole, VPAP honoredThe Virginia Public Access Project received the annual Excellence in Government Award for Public Information, sponsored by the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Policy at Virginia Commonwealth University. VCU Dean Robert Holsworth presented the award at a luncheon attended by more than 500 people at the Richmond Convention Center. Since…


  • HIPAA jams V. Tech panel

    The panel formed to grapple with the fallout from Seung-Hui Cho’s murderous rampage on the Virginia Tech campus April 16 faced a serious stumbling block: access to Cho’s mental-health records.Retired Col. Gerald Massengill, who pulled an embattled Department of Game and Inland Fisheries out of the muck of a public-accountability scandal, headed the panel and…


  • Audit shows FOIA still trips up locals

    Police compliance triples, but many localities still withhold public records or improperly ask requesters who they are and why they want the recordsIn September 2006, like they did in 1998, reporters from newspapers across the state converged on all 134 cities and counties asking for public records under the Freedom of Information Act. As in…


  • Kyl places secret hold on anti-secrecy bill

    The irony was too rich. A bill to revamp the federal Freedom of Information that has enjoyed widespread bipartisan support was suddenly stopped dead in its procedural tracks. Someone had put a hold on the bill’s progress. But who was it? No one would say.That’s right: a secret hold on a bill to reduce secrecy…


  • Paper’s publication of gun permit database sparks furor, prompts AG opinion

    by Matt Haynes, VCOG internRoanoke Times opinion writer Christian Trejbal might have been surprised at the intensity of the public response he generated with his March 11 article, “Shedding light on concealed handguns.” For some, the light was a little too bright. To kick off Sunshine Week, Trejbal attempted to “illustrate the open government process”…


  • Permit me to comment

    by Loren Cochran*The posting and subsequent removal of a list of concealed weapons permit carriers in Virginia has sparked great debate from gun rights advocates and open government groups alike. ….The controversy surrounding the Times piece didn’t stay within the Roanoke area. Gun owners everywhere expressed their indignation at the “outing” of citizens who were…


  • Ask us a FOIA question

    Over the next two pages we have samples of questions Virginia citizens (and a few from outside the state) have asked us via the “Ask Us a FOIA Question” feature on our Web site, www.opengovva.org. We answer an average of seven questions per week. Questions were answered by former VCOG Executive Director Frosty Landon and…