FOI Blog

Good governance suffers when subcommittee meetings are tightly scripted This is my 17th legislative session. I’ve seen majorities shrink, grow and change hands. I’ve seen committees reconstituted and passed through the hands of scores of chairs, from the seasoned to the up-and-coming. I’ve seen the House adapt to technology and public demands for transparency by…

A case study in FOIA confusion, closed meetings, and unintended consequences I don’t want to be too hard on the Franklin City Public School Board. I’ve got nothing against them. I don’t know them to be any better or worse than anyone else. I don’t know about any current squabbles, intrigues or controversies. But I’m…

Several stories highlight the gulf between the letter and the sprit of FOIA VCOG’s daily email newsletter was chock full of stories today that begged for comment. If you’re not subscribed to the newsletter, you can sign up here, but in a nutshell, most every weekday morning around 9 a.m., I send out a missive with…

At VAGARA conference, I get my annual reminder that these folks are heroes VCOG is an education and advocacy agency. I get thanked for the work we do. I gladly accept it, and I appreciate that it’s appreciated. But, I’m also quick to point out that the real heroes, the real heavy lifters, are the…

Proposal would transform individual requests into a shared resource of accountability The City of Richmond is considering the creation of an online FOIA Library. Council members Kenya Gibson and Sarah Abubaker have proposed an ordinance that may share the same name as the FOIA Libraries required by federal law, but which appear to operate differently.…

I recently attended a family wedding in Vermont, and because I just can’t help myself, I wore a t-shirt to the next-day brunch by the lake that reads “FOIA and Find Out.” Because people were there from all over, and because most states call their open records and open meetings laws something other than “FOIA,”…

There is an art to taking good meeting minutes. I like to think I am a good minute-taker. I was a good note-taker in college and law school. In fact, the #1 student in my law school class always asked to use my notes when he’d miss class. (Curious how he managed to turn my…

My husband likes to tell the story of him as a 6-year-old scamp (his mom would say hellion) standing amongst a group of older kids, watching them scamper up and down a utility pole courtesy of climbing spikes some workers left behind. Mom-of-Scamp sees the kids through the window and marches out to shoo everyone…

More and more often, government attorneys are selling a version of FOIA litigation that isn’t supported by the law’s plain terms I’m not even going to try to flower this up. No clever turn of phrase or perfect metaphor. This just needs to be direct and to the point. SERVICE OF PROCESS IS NOT REQUIRED…

It’s a full-time job to remind public officials about the public’s right to know. I had my 15 minutes of fame 15 years ago this month. USA Today, The Daily Beast, CNN, World Tech, not to mention just about every local paper in the state, and a few TV stations.  It’s almost quaint today to…

There’s a learning curve to finding a policy and determining what its requirements are. Note from Megan: The following was written by VCOG’s 2025 Laurence E. Richardson Legal Fellow, Maddie Walker. Maddie is a rising second-year law student at the University of Richmond. This summer, in addition to looking into school board comment period policies,…

The FOIA Council’s subcommittees on records and meetings took a hiatus last year, with the chair taking the position that attendance at the workgroup the FOIA Council was to convene on FOIA request fees was optional for council members. Members Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, Maria Everett and Lola Perkins took turns attending — thanks, ladies — but…

The FOIA Council’s subcommittees on records and meetings took a hiatus last year, with the chair taking the position that attendance at the workgroup the FOIA Council was to convene on FOIA request fees was optional for council members. Members Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, Maria Everett and Lola Perkins took turns attending — thanks, ladies — but…

The following was written for the Williamsburg Watch Substack newsletter, published by Digby Solomon, former president of the Daily Press, and can be found here in its original form: https://www.williamsburgwatch.com/i/157345404/your-right-to-know-what-government-is-doing Imagine you wake up one morning, flip on the TV news, and there, broadcasting from Duke of Gloucester Street, a beaming reporter is announcing that…

Two Virginia universities anticipate tens of thousands of dollars are needed to display warnings and notices of federal guideline violations Here is another example of why higher ed is so frustrating to work with when it comes to transparency measures. Here’s a bill directing facilities that use animals in research to post various reports online.  EXISTING law…

VCOG asks that Fredericksburg make the resumes of candidates to fill a vacant city council seat be made availabe to the public Last year, Del. David Bulova carried a bill at VCOG’s request that was aimed at making sure citizens knew the names and qualifications of people who the rest of the board would decide…

On personnel information, Virginia’s appeals courts have spoken. The Mecklenburg Sun doesn’t have the widest circulation or the biggest internet presence, but its story today — in my opinion — has BIG implications for Virginia FOIA users. But only if local and state governmental bodies respect it and the public insists on it. The paper posted…

Citizen discontent is real. Fighting their FOIA requests doesn’t help.

This FOIA Council meeting was fairly brief, but it did much to clarify where folks are coming from 

Over-the-top descriptions don’t reflect well on the office

Too many public bodies in the Old Dominion show disdain for their fellow Americans 

Another government brief that bends over backwards to withhold information from the public. 

VCOG has filed an amicus brief in the same case arguing the opposite. 

Not really what we had in mind when when the FOIA Council launched in 2000. 

Given how many different committees I find myself in discussing FOIA and transparency legislation, it often feels like I have as many clients as the professionals do instead of just one, VCOG, and sometimes the goals of my job as an advocate versus those of my job as VCOG’s lobbyist aren’t compatible.