FOI Blog

Readers of this column know that I frequently encourage government officials and employees to adhere to the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act as well as to the letter of it. I often suggest that records be released even when an exemption could apply. Meetings do not always need to be closed to the…

I got an inquiry last week from a police chief in a smallish town. He told me about a department employee who went through the grievance process after he was fired from his job. A grievance panel upheld the dismissal. The employee got a copy of the panel’s report, and the chief was saying that…

Every year, for every elected office, candidates are asked what their position would be on Policy X or Policy Y. Candidates also make promises about what they would do about Issue A or Issue B. And some try to assure voters that they would adhere to Principle M but not Principle N (or vice versa)…

Come Sept. 4, my rambunctious 5-year-old son will be joining the ranks of public school kindergartners across the state. Some school districts are already in the swing of things, but thanks to Kings Dominion, it will be Tuesday before the bell rings for all the schools. School will be good for my little one. He…

I’ve written before about electronic meetings, and I’ll probably write about them in the future. But I’m writing about them today because I just spent three hours in a meeting to talk about e-meetings, and I’ve left there vexed. First, a bit of background about how and why we have the rules that we do…

Don’t you just love when you’re looking for one thing and you find something else really good instead? Like getting lost on the way to Aunt Kay’s house and finding an out-of-this-world tacqueria? Or searching your coats for a set of lost keys and finding a crisply folded sawbuck in the pocket? It’s the same…

  As an advocate, an advocate for access, I can climb up on a high horse about as quickly as any given cowboy. The better part of discretion, however, usually persuades me that when it comes to the use of certain exemptions to withhold records or close meetings, I can’t stay on that horse but…

Surprises are great for birthday parties, but not at public meetings. But surprises are what some citizens get when they’re at a meeting where suddenly a new item is added to the agenda without warning. Discussion may or may not ensue, a vote is taken and boom, that’s it. It’s even worse for the people…

I read an article today about how Florida is launching a new test for middle schoolers to prove that they know as much about how their government works as they do about “Snooki & Jwoww.” It’s no easy task, even without the fake tans and f-bombs. But, at least when you’re talking about government, you…

Come July 1, a lot of new laws will go into effect, proof that the men and women we send to Richmond each year really do accomplish something. There are some changes to the Freedom of Information Act, but luckily, as compared to some years, the changes are few and do not represent any major…

There was nothing special about Teresa Sullivan’s firing. Well, sure, we’re talking about the state’s flagship university, and she was one of the state’s highest paid employees, and she held one of the most coveted jobs in American academia. But for all that, in the eyes of the Freedom of Information Act’s meeting provisions, President…

Of course an email is not a meeting. It’s mail. Electronic mail. It’s no different from sending your friends, colleagues and co-workers notes thrown over the cubicle wall; or dispatching a messenger to deliver a memo across town; or actually putting a stamp on an envelope and — mon dieu! — dropping it in a…

Some public bodies really make it seem like they don’t want to hear what you have to say. It’s not unusual for time limits to be placed on comments made by the public at public meetings. Three minutes is a pretty common limit. It’s not unusual, and it’s not hard to understand why it’s done.…

The Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council will be holding three workgroups this summer, and all will require input from the public, as well as from the “stakeholders,” people like me who advocate for certain causes. (If you don’t know about it already, the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council is a gem of a government…

Did you know that in Florida, a government employee’s failure to comply with the state’s public records act can result in not only a $1,000 fine, but also one year in jail? Or both! It’s no mere theoretical penalty, it’s been imposed. Fines imposed on Washington state and local officials have ballooned from $108,000 in…

When I wrote two weeks ago about how I try to concentrate on the access issue, not the underlying controversy, when lending citizens a hand in understanding FOIA, I did not intend to make it one of a two-part series. Nonetheless, two events have me revisiting the notion today. First, campaign finance and disclosure was…

A few years back, you might remember, a little-known organization at the time called the Know Campaign made headlines when it was discovered the group had obtained voting history information and planned to send out personalized mailings to hundreds of households detailing when they’d voted in the past. Voting history records are maintained by the…

Undoubtedly this will sound harsh. Cold. But here it is: I don’t care if there’s going to be a new road running through your neighborhood. It doesn’t matter to me if your child is redistricted to go to a new school. I don’t give a hoot whether the community center is repurposed. Well, thanks a…

It’s true that we don’t know what secrets are being kept that we never find out about. It’s like proving that the dog didn’t bark. Even so, haven’t you noticed that with government information in particular, it almost always has a way of coming out? A recent story in the Daily Press reminded me of…

  What did the Kaine administration know about the shootings at Virginia Tech five years ago and when? Well, thanks to the Library of Virginia, we are starting to know the answer to that question, though it will be months before we have a bigger picture and we may never know all the answers. Here’s…

When a local government is faced with an issue — how to repurpose an old building, whether to implement block scheduling in the high schools, how satisfied the workforce is, where to locate a new government building — they often hire an outside consultant. The consultant comes in, asks a lot of questions, observes what…

I’m writing this on the Amtrak train as winds its way from Williamsburg to D.C. It’s a Spring Break trip to the Big City with my 5-year-old and a family we know from his school. The newness of the train wore off after the first hour, and now he and the three other kids are…