FOI Blog

By Dave Ress For the record (as we like to say). We call it the Freedom of Information Act in Virginia, but it’s good to remember that it’s about information that’s in a public record or revealed in a public meeting. One thing that can really help get information, as Cherise Newsome points out in…

Once again, a court has looked at an isolated provision of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and decided that it means something completely different from what had been commonly accepted in the past.   This time a circuit court judge in Henrico County has held that state senators (and presumably, by extension, delegates)…

By Shelley Kimball There are certain kinds of requests for records that access professionals hate so much they wish they could find ways to outlaw them. Requests that frustrate them so much they wish they didn’t have to respond to them. Let’s call them nuisance requests. We know that citizens are routinely blocked from access…

By Cherise Newsome There are two sides to every FOIA request. I’ve seen them both. As the public information officer for Portsmouth Public Schools, I serve as our FOIA compliance officer. Therefore, I manage the requests that come into the school division. I’ve been here about six months, and I’ve logged more than 50 requests…

Join in the discussion with Virginia’s Freedom of Information Advisory Council to determine how to define which business records may be blocked from public access. The meeting, which is open to all, is Monday, May 15, in the Virginia State Capitol.

Anyone who has requested public records regulalry has faced denials from government offices. An open government activist discusses how best to manage and respond to denials.

Education privacy laws, while intended as protections for students’ records, are being used by institutions to conceal wrongdoing and mismanagement.

In the latest installment of Truth in the Field, a veteran journalist explains the basics of how to use Virginina’s Freedom of Information Act and where to go for help

Welcome to VCOG new blog, Truth in the Field, a series of columns that explain how journalists, citizens, academics, and activists have accessed and used government information.

What a difference a year makes.   Last year, a Senate subcommittee on FOIA advanced one bill after another that restricted the public’s access to government information. It recommended a bill to exempt police names, one to limit which state salaries could be released and in what format, and one that created a month-long procedural…

The Virginia Coalition for Open Government is pleased to announce the winners of its 2016 open government awards. The awards are given to individuals or organizations who have made use of public information laws to keep government accountable and to inform their fellow citizens.   Professor Marc Edwards from Virginia Tech is this year’s Laurence…

I don’t usually repost full copies of news stories, but this one is especially noteworthy as a snapshot of how FOIA transactions can unspool. This is a reporter trying to get a state agency report, but the same back and forth, same push and pull, can be experienced by requesters at all levels of government…

This commentary originally appeared in The Roanoke Times, September 18, 2016   Megan Rhyne | Rhyne is executive director of the Virginia Coalition For Open Government and can be reached at 540-353-8264 or mrhyne@opengovva.org Back in May 1995, the director of the Virginia Press Association, Ginger Stanley, reported to the VPA board of directors that the…

VCOG has submitted a letter — co-signed with the DC Open Government Coalition and the Maryland-Deleware-DC Press Association — urging lawmakers in each jurisdiction to include specific transparency measures in their proposals to create the Metrorail Safety Commission for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to oversee the Metro system. Read the letter here:

VCOG’s executive director, Megan Rhyne, was a guest on the June 10, 2016, edition of This Week in Richmond, hosted by David Bailey.

This article originally appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Friday, March 18, 2016 Rhyne: FOIA requests shouldn't pit government against the public Here’s a two-question test for you: Question 1: Are government employees and public officials (a) always trying to hide something, or (b) of the purest hearts and noblest of actions? Question 2: Is the “public” (a)…

A slightly edited version of this column originally ran in The Roanoke Times, Sunday, March 13, n2016   Rhyne: Meeting meeting myths head-on By Megan Rhyne Rhyne is executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government. When we talk about the Freeom of Information Act, the tendency is to focus on the part of…

UPDATE: All three bills noted below were approved Feb. 8 by the committee. In the process, SB 552, which started off dealing just with law enforcement, has now been changed to prohibit the release of names in connection with salary for all government employees.  FURTHER UPDATE: By the time it passed the House, SB 552…

The Virginia Coalition for Open Government is pleased to announce the winners of its 2015 open government awards. The three winners represent the public, government and media, and all have worked on the same issue: access to court-case information. Dave Ress, a veteran reporter at the Daily Press in Newport News, has been pressing the Office of…

An abbreviated version of this piece appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Sept. 22, the Tidewater News on Sept. 23, the Free Lance-Star on Sept. 27 and The Roanoke Times on Sept. 27. This has been a long time coming. I haven’t wanted to write this column because I am a fairly optimistic person and…

So here's a response given by the Port Authority spokesman when asked for email sent/received by a authority board member during a one-month period: Mr. xxxx: We have completed the search of our email server and found no records responsive to your request. Per normal, members of the Virginia Port Authority Board of Commissioners do…

Let’s clear up this so-called confusion about whether the personnel exemption (or any other exemption) is mandatory.   This “problem” arises in the context of the ABC refusing to release the results of the State Police’s investigation of the ABC officer who arrested UVA student Martese Johnson. The investigation clears the officer, but ABC is…

In Portsmouth they’re up in arms because the city council there voted unanimously to cut public comment speaking times from five minutes per speaker down to three minutes. The problem isn’t so much with the change in the rules as it is with the way that the policy was discssed an implemented: in closed session!…