FOI Complaints

BEDFORD COUNTY — Just a few months before voters would elect a new member of the board of supervisors, the sitting supervisors slammed the door on their deliberations to name an interim member. A dozen citizens stepped forward to fill the seat, but the board shut the public out of the process. For several days, supervisors interviewed applicants and discussed their merits in secret. The Roanoke Times said editorially, “County citizens will have no idea what commended their new representative for office. There will be no way to know if the new supervisor got the job because he or she had the best ideas, experience and temperament or because she had the most friends on the board. Applying for public office is not like applying for any old job. The position inherently involves public scrutiny. If applicants are ready to take on that challenge, they should be ready to take it on from the beginning. Interviews and discussions could have revealed much about the supervisors and what they hold important in a fellow board member. The deliberations could have provided an opportunity for public input.”

CHARLOTTESVILLE — Circuit Judge Edward L. Hogshire ruled that the Region Ten Community Services Board did not willfully violate FOIA and made a “good-faith effort” to comply with the act. But procedural rules for closed meetings were blatantly ignored. Worse, e-mails obtained by Mark Haskins, a critic of the board, indicated that closed-door discussion of “probable litigation” wrongly included such issues as project financing, the neighborhood association and local press coverage. Judge Hogshire found that the motion to go into closed session did not identify the subject matter of the session, did not adequately state the purpose of the meeting and failed to make reference to the applicable exemption from Virginia’s open meeting requirements. Further, the judge found, there was no recorded vote in the open meeting approving the motion to go into closed session and there was no post-closed meeting certification recorded in the minutes. The judge awarded Haskins’ lawyer $2,036 in attorneys’ fees.

FAIRFAX COUNTY — Despite a multi-billion-dollar price-tag and heated debates about the lack of competitive bidding and above-ground vs. tunnel construction, Fairfax supervisors repeatedly talked about Northern Virginia’s Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project only in closed sessions. A board member finally obtained documents with specific Phase One cost figures ($2.4-2.7 billion) previously unavailable to the public. As principal funders for the 23-mile project, the supervisors claimed that secrecy was justified by FOI exemptions for legal advice and “actual or probable litigation.” However, some documents indicated the board broadly discussed fiscal and policy topics, which the FOI Act prohibits.

HERNDON — The town attorney drew up a proposed FOIA policy to prevent “vague, intemperate or redundant public-records requests.” State law already requires reasonably specific record requests. But there’s no prohibition of “intemperate” requests (whatever that means). “Redundant” requests might or might not be permissible, depending on how narrowly that’s defined. The proposal also envisioned passing along to the requester “the town attorney’s hourly rate” when a request is “legally complex or raises legal questions.” The FOI Advisory Council has called that a no-no, since it’s in the town attorney’s job description to handle all legal questions.  

LEXINGTON — “In the What’s a Freedom of Information Act? Department, there’s this, from the Rockbridge Regional Industrial Development Authority bylaws, . . .Regular meetings may be held without notice at such times and places as may from time to time be determined by the Regional IDA.’ A citizen asked about it at the IDA’s meeting. IDA secretary Dave Kleppinger blamed a lawyer.” (Rockbridge Advocate item.)

LOUDOUN COUNTY — Thanks to e-mails, FOIA and solid reporting, Washington Post reporters Michael Laris and David S. Fallis uncovered close personal ties of a small circle of the county’s political, development and business leaders. Leesburg Today wrote, “The question of whether individuals are corrupt — exhibiting a perversion of integrity — is one that voters can decide. And from their point of view, the appearance of corruption is just as damaging as actual corruption. (But) having the inner workings of government clearly visible to county residents is a fundamental element of good leadership. In moving forward from here, it is important to know that transparency can block charges of corruption while arrogance in government can fuel them.” And the Today editorial added, “In Virginia, it takes an extreme case to violate the conflict of interest laws. If this is the standard by which we measure the conduct of our government leaders, the bar is set too low.” Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Plowman announced that he was working with the U.S. Attorney’s office to investigate possible corruption.

LOUDOUN COUNTY — The board of supervisors held several closed meetings with lawyers to discuss their legal position in a continuing dispute with the Town of Purcellville over conflicting interpretations of land use-controls on acreage surrounding the town. Behind the closed door, county attorneys were directed to file appeals and even new lawsuits against the town (despite FOIA’s mandate for public votes whenever actions occur). On another matter, the board’s vice chairman said the board “has a plan” to resolve the question about whether the Town of Leesburg or the Loudoun County Sanitation Authority would serve new development outside the town boundaries. Again, no public vote had occurred. After these closed sessions, supervisors routinely certified that no action was taken. Leesburg Today commented editorially, “The questions supervisors should be asking before every closed meeting is not, . . .Is there a way we can discuss this issue behind closed doors?’ They should be asking, . . .Why can’t we have this discussion in public?’ When they take a vote to certify that no formal action was taken behind closed doors, their constituents ought to be able to believe them.”

METROPOLITAN WASHINGTON — Get ready for more secrecy for the Dulles rail project. VDOT agreed to turn over the Dulles Toll Road to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority this spring. MWAA wants to use the toll road’s $28 million annual revenue to pay for a Metrorail extension to Dulles International Airport, and has already announced plans to raise tolls to pay for it. In an editorial the Washington Examiner said: “How high they will go is anybody’s guess. . . if the public doesn’t like it, too bad. MWAA is an unelected body and only five of its 13 members are from Virginia. Not only is MWAA not accountable to the public, it doesn’t even think it has to respond to Freedom of Information requests.” (MWAA’s assertion runs counter to the opinion of Virginia’s FOI Advisory Council, which concluded in 2004 that MWAA is, in fact, subject to the state’s sunshine laws.)

METROPOLITAN WASHINGTON — Requests by the Washington Examiner for overtime data from local government officials in Alexandria, Vienna, Arlington County, Fairfax County and Prince William County were adamantly denied. Fairfax County said it paid out $50 million in overtime and $23 million in sick leave to non-school employees last year. But a county spokeswoman, citing privacy regulations, refused to specify how the $50 million breaks down among specific county staff members. Fairfax city officials claimed it would cost $300 for the two or three mouse clicks required to copy data for its 500 relevant employees. Said the Examiner, “Taxpayers have a right to know if overtime and pension costs for local governments are as excessive” as those paid by the Metro system. An Examiner report found transit employees piling up more than $70 million in overtime. Metro’s 200 highest paid employees were all paid at least $40,000 in overtime last year. The report also detailed how Metro employees use excessive overtime to fatten up already generous pensions.

RICHMOND — When the Senate Ethics Advisory Panel rejected a complaint against Senators Tommy Norment, R-Williamsburg, and Ken Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, the ethics panel investigated in secret, met in secret and announced its decision in a one-sentence ruling. The committee’s makeup? Three former senators and an ex-college president with close ties to Norment and Stolle. The complaint involved their law firm’s handling of land condemnations and their participation in eminent-domain debates at the legislature. Observed the Virginian-Pilot, “Virginia lawmakers tout disclosure as the alternative to campaign-finance restrictions, and then refuse to fund audits of the contribution-and-spending reports. They tap friends and former colleagues to evaluate their ethics behavior. They present citizens with one-sentence rulings in their favor. Most ethics-panel decisions may be entirely on the up and up, as this one appears to be, (but) ethics regulation in Virginia government (is) so inbred, so devoid of accountability, that even if a right action is taken, it smells.”

ROANOKE — After years of indecisive city council leadership and bitter debate over the razing of a crumbling Victory Stadium, the city’s voters elected a reform ticket that quickly bulldozed the city’s one-time sports icon (once the site of VMI-Virginia Tech football games, before the Hokies went Big Time). But when it was time to decide the site of a new amphitheater, the “For the City” independents rammed through a “quick, firm decision” with no time for public debate over possible sites. In a strongly worded editorial, The Roanoke Times chastised the council majority. “In acting in such haste, you nipped a public debate before it could blossom into consensus. You have watered the seeds of discontent, allowing them to sprout into poisoned vines that, if you aren’t careful, will strangle whatever accomplishments you hope to achieve,” the Times said. A year earlier, the reform ticket was elected with the Times’ backing.