FOI Complaints

ABINGDON

When an individual is arrested and arraigned, it’s a magistrate judge who decides whether the suspect will be released on bond. Because the magistrate has the potential to favor local bail bondsmen by setting the bond amount, conflicts of interest between magistrates and bailbondsmen should be avoided. In Abingdon, however, the local magistrate was not only steering suspects to his father’s bail bond business, he was also falsifying documents to accomplish the action. Mike Owens, a Bristol Herald-Courier reporter, used FOIA to uncover the scheme, and the magistrate, John C. "Tiny" Mullins III, was fired by the Virginia Supreme Court’s Office of the Executive Secretary. The Virginia State Police is also investigating. Owens’ own investigation also revealed that many of the magistrate’s records had been destroyed, even where the Public Records Act’s record-retention schedules said they should still have been available.

AMHERST COUNTY

For two months after Amherst County Administrator Rodney Taylor abruptly resigned, the board of supervisors remained tight-lipped. Because the board’s discussions about Taylor occurred in closed sessions, citizens were understandably curious about why the administrator left. In response, a statement was released late June saying Taylor left the job because of "insubordination." The problem was that this statement was said to have been "approved by" a majority of the board after it was discussed in closed session. Under FOIA, however, any vote (which is what approval or disapproval appears to be) must be taken in open session, and votes must be recorded in the minutes. Neither happened here, and the individuals who made up the majority versus the minority were not identified. Because the reasons given for Taylor’s departure also keep changing, the Lynchburg News & Advance editorialized, "Plain and simple, the situation in Amherst County is a mess."

ARLINGTON COUNTY

When Alexandria Police Chief David Baker was arrested for DUI in Arlington, many newspapers went to the Arlington police department to ask for copies of the incident report. FOIA exempts the actual police reports themselves, but does require that a summary of the incident be released. Arlington police prepared a two-paragraph summary of the incident, then charged the Alexandria Gazette Packet $24 for it. They charged six other requesters $24 each, too. The police department said it was just being fair, explaining that the $24 charge was for a half-hour of staff time to prepare the summary, and that the department "didn’t want to charge the first person to request the document any more than all the other people who asked for it." According to a 2003 opinion from the FOI Advisory Council, though, when providing records that have already been assembled for easy public access, the government is not required to charge requesters anything for those records, much less the amount it cost to first compile the records for an earlier requester. And did the papers that paid at least get their money’s worth? According to the Gazette Packet, the summary misidentified the name of the police chief and the date of his arrest.

DUMFRIES

It was only lunch, they thought, but when the Dumfries mayor and two members of the town council took their local senator, Democrat Charles Colgan, out for a bite, it was also a meeting under the Freedom of Information Act. FOIA says that when three or more members of a public body (two, if the body is three or fewer) meet to discuss public business, then it’s a public meeting that must follow FOIA’s procedures. By the mayor’s own admission to a Manassas Journal Messenger reporter, they brought the senator "up to date on what was going on with the landfill and our desires for Frayley Boulevard." The mayor later admitted that it was a meeting and took responsibility for their failure to follow FOIA. "We weren’t trying to do anything underhanded," he added. "It just never dawned on me."

NEWPORT NEWS

Two juveniles held in a Newport News detention center claimed they were raped by two other residents. The two boys sued the city, saying the city was at fault because the facility was too crowded and did not separate juveniles based on size or other factors. The case eventually settled, and the Newport News City Council agreed to a gag order sealing the settlement terms, including the amount paid out by the local government. A FOIA request asking the city to reveal the amount paid out was denied. When asked by the Daily Press why they agreed to keep the settlement amount confidential, four of the seven Newport News council members said, basically, "the lawyers told us to do it." Two members said they didn’t remember what they discussed about the settlements, and the seventh member lamentably replied, "I don’t have any objections to the taxpayers not being able to know, as long as it doesn’t violate our policies."

RICHMOND

Governor Timothy Kaine could not have had worse timing. Just as his South Carolina counterpart was wooing his soul mate in Argentina, not hiking on the Appalachian Trail, as he allegedly told staffers, Kaine told Republicans who asked for his travel records under FOIA that he would not turn them over, citing FOIA’s exemption for the governor’s "working papers." The governor is entitled to invoke an applicable exemption just like any other government agency or officer, but exemptions under FOIA are discretionary. That means he can release records whenever he wants, and withhold them whenever he wants. Given the bruhaha over Sanford’s travels at the time, and, even more importantly, given that Kaine had only just confidently assured Virginians that he would not put them on the hook for the cost of his doing business as the Democratic National Caucus chairman, it was the perfect time to exercise his discretion in favor of release. Though the GOP dropped its pursuit of the travel records, the Associated Press’ Bob Lewis kept at it. In addition to filing a narrower request with Kaine’s office for a list of cities traveled to, Lewis also did an end run around the governor and asked the State Police for records related to the governor’s reimbursement to the department for security detail on non-Virginia business. Kaine eventually released summaries of his travels on his own.

WESTMORELAND COUNTY

Citizens in Westmoreland County are up in arms about the city’s intent to sell hundreds of acres to The O’Gara Group, a security-training company currently operating in Halifax County. Like many civically engaged residents, they filed FOIA requests for records related  to the $679,000 sale of 25 acres to O’Gara approved by the Industrial Development Authority.  Of 34 FOIA requests filed, 22 came back with the response, "no existing records applicable to request." Doubtful that a deal costing that much could go undocumented, several citizens filed a FOIA lawsuit against the county. There had been no ruling in the case at press time.

PAGE & WESTMORELAND COUNTIES

The circuit court judge in Westmoreland County and the district court judge in Page County do not allow cameras in their courtroom. Both judges cite security concerns: someone could videotape the entrances and exists and plan to break someone out of court. The judge certainly has province over his/her own courtroom, even if the "security" argument is shaky (anyone can observe those same entrances and exits when they walk into the courtroom, which is open to all), but what about when the courtroom is used as a meeting place for the local government body? That’s what citizens in both counties are wondering since the Freedom of Information Act specifically states that citizens have the right to film or record public meetings (subject to rules to limit disruption). A Westmoreland County citizen was prohibited from bringing in his video camera into a board meeting, and WHSV, a Harrisonburg television station, has been unsuccessful in its attempt to get the judge in Page County to suspend his rules while the county board meets in the courtroom. Both counties have met in local venues that don’t have restrictions on cameras, and the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star urged Westmoreland in an editorial to televise its meetings so it doesn’t appear that citizens are being kept out to quiet controversy. In September, Westmoreland agreed to hold future meetings in a museum auditorium, where the only complaint has been that it’s too cold.