Summer 2008 Newsletter (Vol. 12, No. 1)

The followin are 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 VCOG Associate Director Megan Rhyne. The following questions have been edited…

Leigh Purdum of Madison County received VCOG’s Laurence E. Richardson award for individual citizen contributions to open government. The award honors the memory of a longtime Charlottesville broadcaster and VCOG founding director.Purdum, a former sheriff’s office employee, won a landmark court decision against Madison County Sheriff Eric J. Weaver for willfully violating the state’s Freedom…

The Virginia Coalition for Open Government held its annual conference May 22-23 in Fredericksburg.The conference kicked off with a dinner May 22 honoring the recipients of this year’s FOI award winners: Leigh Purdum and Laurence Hammack (see story, page 9). The keynote speaker was Sen. Edward Houck (D-Spotsylvania), the chair of the FOI Advisory Council,…

GLOUCESTER – The Gloucester Board of Supervisors played “fast and loose” with the state’s FOI laws, county Commonwealth Attorney Robert D. Hicks said in a February report on the board’s cloak-and-dagger firing of the county manager and immediate hiring of the board chair’s friend, Lacy Smith, as a replacement. Though Hicks said there wasn’t a…

Council opinion summariesIn AO-11-07, the council concluded that the sheriff of Madison County had to release the names of the citizens he appointed to a citizens’ advisory committee. The sheriff cited §2.2-3705.1(10) (as the Attorney General did in his opinion about releasing the names of concealed weapon permit holders to justify withholding personal information, like…

By Jennifer PerkinsPicture if you will, Jane Q. Public wants to get some information on how the legislature in Virginia operates.  Particularly, she is interested in the committees: names of the committees, names of their members, what their jurisdiction is, what kind of timelines the General Assembly has on bill introduction and passage, maybe a…

John Edwards wins Press Association awardJohn B. Edwards, VCOG board member and editor and publisher of The Smithfield Times, has been named the winner of the Virginia Press Association’s 21st annual D. Lathan Mims Award for Editorial Leadership in the Community. Edwards previously won the award in 1998-99 and 2002. He has won the Mims…

The latter half of 2007 was good to Virginia citizens exercising their rights under the Freedom of Information Act, with the pro-access rulings of the Supreme Court and two circuit courts.John Fenter asked for records authorizing signs around the Norfolk airport roadways that vehicles were subject to search. Within five days, as FOIA requires, the…

The 2008 Virginia state legislative session was not a good one for defenders of freedom of information. Bills that would have improved public access to information died. Bills that chipped away at Virginia’s FOIA through small exemptions passed into law with little opposition from lawmakers. To make matters worse, a couple of really bad access-damaging…