Virginia Coalition for Open Government

FOI Blog

  • Transparency the most radical police reform of all

    This piece originally ran in the Virginia Mercury, Aug. 17, 2020   I’m no expert on the art of policing. Beyond my personal opinions, I couldn’t tell you when the use of force is or isn’t appropriate, or to what extent police officers should be immune from lawsuits for their actions. I wouldn’t know how much…

  • No, Your FOIA Request Cannot Wait Until This Emergency is Over

    “In the midst of a pandemic, it is reasonable to expect delays in processing public records requests and even incomplete responses, especially where public entities may not have access to physical files or other resources. But work-from-home orders have demonstrated that government can carry on remotely. New data, contracts and communications are being created digitally…

  • An imperfect, but temporary fix

    Amid the honking horns, fainting leaders, plexiglass boxes and face mask fashion, it was easy to miss the governor’s amendments to the budget bills that were approved Wednesday, unanimously by the House and with minimal dissent in the Senate, that allow public bodies to meet electronically during the time of a declared emergency “when it is…

  • Time for transparency on COVID-19 hotbeds

    Time for transparency on COVID-19 hotbeds by Steve Stewart, Publisher of The Smithfield Times. Originally published in The Smithfield Times During a global pandemic, we tread lightly with criticism of pubic health professionals, who’ve served admirably and, in many cases, heroically while guiding society through the challenge of our lifetimes. Yet, we can’t leave unchecked a…

  • Extraordinary times call for extraordinary efforts

    NOTE: This column, by one of VCOG’s founding board members, John Edwards, was originally published by The Smithfield Times. Edwards, the former editor of the Times, still writes a column for the paper, called In the Short Rows. Edwards was instrumental in setting up the FOIA Council and served on the council for his first…

  • Electronic meetings and democracy

    Read the original editorial as it appeared in The Daily Progress, April 5, 2020. Megan’s note: I wish I had written this. It’s perfect. Opinion/Editorial: Democracy’s health also must be shielded Local governments are charting new territory in their move to electronic meeting forums. It’s important that they get this right. They are making changes that go…

  • Love & Sunshine Week in a Time of Coronavirus

    It may be the height of irony during Sunshine Week — the access and transparency community’s annual love letter to open records and open meetings laws across our country — to hear me say the rules of open government might not apply right now.   I’ve never been one to shy away from the soapbox,…

  • It’s not supposed to be adversarial

    FOIA requests by elected officials prompt backlash from fellow board members.

  • What’s behind increasing FOIA fees?

    We are at a tipping point now because more and more requesters are seeing larger and larger bills. Without an understanding of the complexity of an email search, these charges appear not only arbitrary, but also punitive, a tool for discouraging requests.

  • Supreme Court rules place thumb on scale for confidentiality

    “The rules are the latest salvo in an aggressive push to divorce the courts and the Office of the Executive Secretary from FOIA. In 2018, SB 727 would have removed them from FOIA. The bill was withdrawn by its sponsor, but then a circuit court judge ruled similarly some months later in a case that stemmed from…

  • It’s not a waste, it’s the law

    OK, this story makes me tetchy. At a Pulaski County Board of Supervisors meeting, a supervisor and the county administrator engaged in an exchange over a projected slide showing the number of FOIA requests filed each year for the past nine years.  The total was 361, which equals 35.4/year, which equals fewer than 3/month. (A story from…

  • One of these is not like the others

    The agreements Amazon signed with the state and Arlington County contain unique public records provisions unlike those in other company deals.

  • Sunshine Week op-ed: The Real FOIA Heroes

    Versions of the following were wrtiten on the encouragement of Lawrence McConnell, VCOG board member and editor of The Roanoke Times, and published in: Bacon’s Rebellion (online) Bristol Herald-Courier Daily Press (Newport News) The Daily Progress (Charlottesville) The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg) Richmond Times-Dispatch The Roanoke Times The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk)

  • Virginia, Amazon & FOIA

    Secrecy surrounding the Amazon decision to locate half of its HQ2 operation in Virginia comes with a heavy price tag.

  • Why a judge’s decision exempting the judiciary from FOIA matters

    A judge in Richmond decided in October 2018 that Virginia’s judiciary was not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. Here’s why that matters.

  • VCOG: Why you need us, and why we need you

    Government accountability doesn’t end on election day. Stay engaged by supporting open government and open government organizations (like VCOG!).

  • Someone should step up to let the public in

    A version of this entry was published in the Bristol Herald Courier, Sept. 1, 2018.   Strange doings are afoot in Bristol. Citizens there, who own the right to elect and reject their council members at the ballot box, are being cut-out of an attempt to remove one of those members. According to an article…

  • Thinking of the Old Dominion in New England

    There was much to remind me of Virginia in New Hampshire. And even more to leave me wondering.

  • Just because you can, doesn’t mean you must

    Public bodies often use secretive processes to hire a chief administrator, also known as a manager, executive or superintendent. It doesn’t have to be that way.

  • Private texts? Not if they’re about public business

    How the record was created, how it was delivered, how it was sent, whose equipment was used (and even whether it was a final report or a draft one), none of that matters when it comes to determining what a public record is.

  • Showing up for open government for 20+ years

    This commentary by VCOG Executive Director Megan Rhyne originally appeared in the June 28, 2018, issue of The Roanoke Times.   When Frosty Landon, the former editor of this newspaper and the first director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government (VCOG), first took me under his wing as an assistant back at the turn of…

  • This dog won’t hunt

    You don’t have to have a dog in the hunt to be ticked by this story This story should really bother you. It should bother you, not because you know any of the people involved, the city or the situation that prompted it. It should bother you on principle: A court order was secured to prohibit…

  • ICYMI: when FOIA, archiving, former governors and budget cuts collide

    Want records from past governors? Get ready to wait.  by Robert Zullo, Richmond Times-Dispatch, March 31, 2018 Want emails, voicemails, memos or other documents from former Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s administration that easily should have been obtainable under open records law while he was in office? Get ready to wait. Maybe for a decade. That’s what…

  • Community journalism essential to transparency

    by Jeff Lester “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” Before he became a Supreme Court justice, Louis Brandeis wrote those words more than a century ago in a Harper’s Weekly article on the need to uncover corruption in the nation’s financial system. Since then, advocates for open government have invoked the metaphor…

  • Guest column: History through public records

    by BOB GIBSON In recent months, Virginia’s best known presidential plantations added enhanced public tours that more realistically explore the lives and the many contributions of enslaved workers who built Monticello, Montpelier, the University of Virginia and much of the South. James Madison’s Montpelier and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello offer new tours that look at plantation…