ALEXANDRIA — Following its regular meeting, Alexandria City Council went into a closed executive session with the Alexandria Housing and Redevelopment Authority’s Board of Commissioners. Most authority members did not know the reason. Sources said the council was looking for a solution to saving a deteriorated public housing project. The authority has an aversion to conducting business in an open forum. At one get-together, commissioners closed the meeting after 15 minutes, then talked for three hours about “Legal, Real Estate and Personnel Matters.” Perhaps realizing that vague language violated FOIA, the agenda got revised to read: “Revised Operating Budget and Vote approval of Resolution 358 authorizing staff to implement financing alternatives for a Quaker Hill buyout.” On its face, that still seemed to be a FOIA violation.
AUGUSTA COUNTY — It’s not just ordinary citizens who get shut out of the governing process. According to the News Leader, Supervisor Nancy Sorrells was the victim of “hide the memo.” Board Chairman Wendell Coleman told the county staff to withhold information from her involving an economic development project in her district. The paper’s editorial said, “We had hoped the board had learned something resembling a lesson about openness following the (previous year’s) Weyers Cave mega-site debacle. Apparently they have not; instead they seem determined to do it their way, and the lesson remains unlearned.” A later 5-2 vote to shut the public out of any decision-making process involving the project “seems incredibly arrogant,” the paper said.
CHARLOTTESVILLE — The board of a regional community services agency admitted going into a secret session earlier this year to talk about a possible lawsuit involving its sponsorship of a group home for the mentally handicapped. Its lawyer called the alleged FOIA violations “hyper-technical,” but an ousted former director said the board also talked about “financing, press coverage and the neighborhood association.” FOIA allows closed-door discussion of probable lawsuits — but not about press coverage, neighborhood groups or, in most cases, “financing.” A lawsuit did in fact get filed. Not for group-home issues but for FOIA violations. The ACLU filed a FOIA request that went unanswered until a complaint was filed in court. According to the ACLU, the board never voted to go into a closed session.
CHRISTIANSBURG — Town council held a closed-door meeting to choose someone to fill a vacancy on the council. Afterward, a longtime member of the town planning commission was named to the remaining two years in the vacated position. If there’s to be public input, it will have to await an election, two years hence. Commented The Roanoke Times: the council “has not learned the difference between what is legal and what is right. An open process would have better served the public.
COLONIAL BEACH — Ignoring FOIA, the school superintendent and school board said they had a right to withhold documents from town council. Inexplicably, Superintendent Alice H. Howard asserted that FOIA gives citizens the right to view public documents, but not governing bodies. The council said it wanted to see documents dealing with architect fees for an abandoned middle school. Lamented one councilman: “We send them $1.5 million a year and we don’t know what they do with it.” Citizens and media also got stonewalled; FOIA requests went unanswered, a clear violation of the law.
ELKTON — Just three days after the mayor appeared in court after being accused of violating the Freedom of Information Act, the Elkton Town Council mandated that all FOIA requests had to be put in writing (that’s often a good idea, but it cannot be required). The council also imposed a copying charge of 50 cents for each page of a requested record. Councilman Lee Dearing had second thoughts, saying the copying fee needed to be more in line with what other localities charge and what FOIA says is acceptable (“actual cost”). In the court case, a citizen tried unsuccessfully to get the mayor fined for a FOIA procedural violation. The town was two weeks late producing a requested record. Nonetheless, Judge John A. Paul dismissed the case, noting that late or not, the citizen had the record.
FAIRFAX COUNTY — A Washington Post reporter unearthed e-mails showing that county workers and managers had devised ingenious methods to hang on to county-owned cars — by hook or by crook. Managers had coordinated vehicle swaps among employees to ensure that vehicles hit a needed 4,500-mile yearly minimum; in others, workers were urged to drive more. The Post suggested editorially that the county “scrutinize the deployment of its remaining vehicles, tighten procedures governing their use and encourage more employees to use their own cars when possible (and claim reimbursement by mileage) — a much more cost-efficient option.”
HAMPTON — A city council agenda included this humdinger: “06-0525 Approval of resolution of personnel matter on terms acknowledged by Council on September 5, 2006.” A Daily Press editorial observed, “If you’re hoping to find any hint in the phrase . . .acknowledged by Council on September 5, 2006,’ you’re out of luck. There’s no record of a meeting of the council on Sept. 5: no agenda, no notice of action, no minutes. It seems the council agreed to a settlement with former City Manager George Wallace, who was fired last year. This quiet handling of a matter important to the city’s governance and finances is bound to make citizens wonder: What’s that all about? Why slip it into the consent agenda, an assemblage of routine items that were dealt with in one fell swoop? Why lump it in with decisions about the elevator contractor at City Hall and a grant for youth football?”
LYNCHBURG — Five officials spent more than $5,900 in taxpayer money traveling to New Orleans to pick up a downtown revitalization award. One of the five was City Manager Kimball Payne. He turned over the receipts to a reporter, but he was clearly miffed. “I can’t believe you’re wasting your time on this,” Payne said. Travel receipts are public record under the Freedom of Information Act.
MARTINSVILLE — The city spent more than $300,000 on a bid to buy the area’s cable TV franchise, only to hear from a judge that the city could not own or operate a cable TV station. After one of many closed meetings, the council voted in open session — with no discussion — to abandon the effort to buy the local system. Mary Martin, a Henry County School Board member, said she was dismayed with the closed-door nature of the city council’s decisions on the cable plan. The city attorney told the council in closed session that the effort lacked public support and the city could not meet the franchise price. That information was included in a summary of advice he gave the council. The Martinsville Bulletin was given the summary despite the lack of any FOIA requirement for disclosure of closed-door deliberations. The Bulletin complained “Throughout the tenure of City Manager Dan Collins there has been a theme – — sometimes spoken, sometimes implied — that government with less public input is more efficient government.” The paper also objected to a council decision to hold a retreat in Roanoke: “Why, we wonder, are those discussions not being held in Martinsville or Henry County, where area residents could listen in and get a better understanding of what this council wants to do. The sessions will be open to the public but why should area residents have to drive 60 miles to listen as plans are made for the city’s future? The answer is they shouldn’t.”
NORFOLK — A state official finally agreed to release a written summary of a State Police investigation into the shooting death of a Norfolk police officer. But State Secretary of Public Safety John W. Marshall refused to release the entire report, even though Mayor Paul D. Fraim called for its disclosure, as did the Virginian-Pilot and Del. Ken Melvin, a legislator-attorney representing Officer Seneca Darden’s widow. Melvin said it appeared the criminal investigation was over and questioned the justification for withholding the report. State law allows broader exemptions for law enforcement than for other public entities, noted Maria Everett, executive director of the state’s FOI Advisory Council. In investigations of public bodies for waste, fraud, discrimination, licensing issues and the like, there is a distinction between an active and closed case, she said, the latter being available for public perusal. “The mission is different in law enforcement,” Everett said. This is reflected in the conspicuous absence of the words “ongoing” or “active” in the legal language that governs these agencies’ work. So it doesn’t matter whether a case is open, inactive or closed, she said, since neither has to be released. But the Virginian-Pilot said the report’s release would benefit citizens and the police department. “The former could ascertain just how vigorous the State Police conducted its probe. The latter could gain citizen support as the department works to prevent a recurrence of such a tragic incident.” Darden, who was black and working in plain clothes, was shot six times by a white officer. Other officers, standing closer to Darden, did not shoot. The fatal shooting touched off a rancorous public debate split along racial lines.
NORFOLK — “Goofy” is what the Virginian-Pilot editorial called it. That was an understatement. The school board decreed that board members no longer could make inquiries of the school administration without the approval of the rest of the board or its chairman. “This has the goofy result of leaving board members with less right to know about school business than the citizens whom they’re serving,” the editorial said. As the editorial writer also noted, apparently nobody on the board realized the easiest and surest way for a member to get records was to submit a FOIA request.
NORFOLK — After several weeks of going back and forth on the issue, the Virginia Port Authority finally resumed providing detailed information about employee travel expenses. A mid-August decision had stopped revealing any specifics about hotel expenses, meals and other charges. The problem began when Maria Everett, the state’s top expert on access, told the authority it had been disclosing some details about hotels, meals and other expenses beyond the requirements of the state’s open records law. But disclosing the payment amount alone is simply not enough, as she told the authority. “It has to be meaningful. It can’t just say $5,000 to Maria.” FOIA explicitly requires disclosure of “records of the allowances or reimbursements for expenses paid to any officer, official or employee.”
RICHMOND — — The city’s Industrial Development Authority made loans without knowing enough about borrowers, didn’t keep close track of money it was owed and lived high on the hog, a new audit reported. The audit found that 13 percent of the authority’s loans were behind in payments and that it had made loans to entities related to officials and contractors. The authority, the city’s financing arm for economic development projects, is in limbo, after all but one of its board members resigned. Earlier this year, Mayor L. Douglas Wilder called for the authority to be dissolved, after The Times-Dispatch reported it could not account for more than $240,000 in loans.
ROANOKE — Just three months on the job, new housing authority executive director Ellis Henry called for a HUD probe after a review of contracts indicated at least the appearance of possible conflicts of interest. The review was prompted when a citizen filed a Freedom of Information Act request. Bob Craig, a retired Marine Corps colonel who spent years in finance operations, said he filed the request seeking information about potential conflicts involving a city councilman who was a member of the housing authority board and a partner in one of the authority’s major contractors.
ROANOKE – — When the city got just one proposal for developing a golf course, it kept the plan under wraps — causing nearby homeowners needless worry about the future of the property. When a new proposal was received, city officials again slammed the door closed. A newspaper editorial said, “the city needs to understand that secrecy puts the neighbors on edge.”
STAFFORD – — County Supervisor Mark Dudenhefer thinks e-mail from constituents should be private, even when public business is involved. That’s because an activist group fronting, he said, for “radical elements within the Democratic party” and embracing purposes “as sinister as those of the ACLU” used FOIA to obtain dozens of e-mails between Dudenhefer and supporters. Accusing the General Assembly of writing FOIA rules that are harmful to “free discussion, violate free-speech rights and are “counterproductive,” the supervisor also said he favored repeal of FOIA’s ban on secret meetings of three members of a governing body. Instead, he wants public-meeting rules to kick in only when a full quorum is present.
WHITE STONE — Following a closed session, town council announced intentions to change the Lancaster County town’s part-time police position to a full-time job. The job performance of the town’s only cop was an appropriate subject for a closed meeting (if the cop reports directly to the council); the switch to a full-time position was not.