CITIZEN ACTIVIST INVOKES FOIA, TURNS UP AN $18,170 TRAVEL TAB
Travel expenses for Chesterfield County officials will be more carefully scrutinized in the future, thanks to Brenda Stewart’s Freedom of Information Act request.
The Chesterfield resident discovered that County Administrator Lane B. Ramsey had chartered an $18,170 flight Dec. 30 out of Scott City, Kan., at taxpayer expense.
In the wake of a firestorm of criticism from county residents, Ramsey apologized and agreed to pay for the trip out of his own pocket.
New “procedures . . . would not have affected that trip as far as approval goes, because the [Board of Supervisors] chairman can approve the county administrator’s travel,” Stewart warned, noting that records she obtained about the flight did not identify the county official who contracted the charter flight.
A Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial said the new rules “signify a step in the right direction. Yet Chesterfield leaders should guard against backsliding into a pattern that again alienates those they purport to serve.”
In a separate editorial, the newspaper said, “Chesterfield honchos will not soon forget the name Brenda Stewart. Her efforts revealed the Chesterfield-to-Kansas round-trip flight that county officials chartered to ferry . . . Ramsey during the New Year’s holiday — for the low, low price of $18,170.12. Did she get this information because she’s an insider who can sneak out with documents in the dark of night? No. Ms. Stewart’s bombshell rocked the courthouse after she filed a (FOIA) request.”
The revelation, the T-D wrote, “provided metro Richmond with an unscheduled civics lesson — and not just about government waste. Without the Freedom of Information Act, the county’s residents still would live in costly ignorance about how their money had been spent. Thanks to the FOIA, citizen-crusader Brenda Stewart informed the world.”
WARNER’S RECORDS ARCHIVED WITHOUT A FIGHT
When Jim Gilmore left the governor’s office in January 2002, a nasty fight broke out over archiving historical records. Some records were withheld, others could not be found.
Before mediators stepped in, the fight with the Library of Virginia and the Library Board, custodians of governors’ records going back to Patrick Henry, degenerated into ugly finger-pointing, name-calling – — and, worse, threatened litigation.
Lessons were obviously learned.
Almost as soon as he took office, Gov. Mark Warner and his chief of staff Bill Leighty convened a full cabinet meeting with State Librarian Nolan Yelich and the state archivist to make sure everybody understood archiving procedures and requirements.
“We worked very closely with the state librarian to make sure we retained and archived a thorough digital and paper record of the administration,” Leighty said.
Interestingly, the Warner Administration also revised its severance policy. “If an individual separated from state service they would not be eligible for any severance payments unless they had properly archived according to our document retention schedule,” Leighty said.
“It seems to have worked!,” Leighty concluded. And it probably will in the current administration as well: Gov. Kaine kept Leighty on as his chief of staff.
Del. Steve Landes, R-Augusta, also worked to head off further confrontations. He gained passage in ’03 of a bill requiring consultation between a governor and state librarian, and making clear that only records of a “strictly” private or personal nature could be withheld.
. . .CHALK’ ONE UP FOR CHARLOTTESVILLE
London may have its Hyde Park for free-speech protection, but Charlottesville has erected a unique First Amendment monument just outside City Hall.
Two long slate blackboards mounted back to back sit on the east side of Charlottesville’s pedestrian mall, thanks to the Charlottesville-based Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression.
The Staunton News Leader called it a peculiar and fittingly Charlottesvillian thing.
For the most part, people have used the monument as predicted, according to Associate Director Josh Wheeler.
“The comments on the chalkboard range from the serious to the silly, from local politics to national politics, from the religious and philosophical to the inane, from works of art to . . . well, lesser works of art. To date, there has been no physical damage to the monument. There has been some purely offensive expression on the monument but the ratio of such expression to inoffensive speech has been about 1 to 100,” Wheeler said.
“I must confess that we underestimated how much (and how often) the monument would be used. Often, the entire chalkboard is covered in less than a day. So much so that it is difficult to read what is written. To mitigate that issue during the summer (when use is greatest), we are cleaning the monument twice a week rather than once as originally planned,” he said.
BLACKSBURG SHOWS VA. HOW IT SHOULD BE DONE
Maybe it was because open government got a lot of emphasis in Blacksburg’s late-spring race for mayor.
Maybe it was because of Citizens First, a local political action committee that pushed for openness over the years – — and backed candidates who shared their vision.
And maybe it was just because Blacksburg is a university town that takes politics and good government seriously.
Whatever the reason, Town Council did all the right things in filling a council vacancy.
Instead of going behind closed doors to strike a deal, the council openly talked about candidate Mary Holliman, then openly chose her to serve out the remainder of a term that ends in 2008.
As The Roanoke Times said, “Just because the law permits government secrecy does not mean government is obligated to use it.”
Unfortunately, most governing bodies have seized on a ruling by the FOI Advisory Council that lets them discuss vacancies in secret – — even when all the incumbents gained office only after a wide open election process.
In years past, an opinion from the office of the attorney general prohibited closed-door discussion of such appointments. The FOI Advisory Council’s opinion trumps the older AG ruling; a careful reading of FOIA supports the Council’s view.
Nothing, however, requires that such conversations take place in the shadows.
As the Times said, “Many citizens have a keen interest in the thinking that goes into public decisions. When the decision is choosing a councilmember, someone who will represent the public without actually having been elected, that interest justifiably intensifies.
As the Times editorial concluded, “Too often governments exploit every possible trick and exemption to conceal things from the people. Many elected officials view secrecy as the default. To them, open government laws are a burden that set a bare minimum beyond which they need not travel. Blacksburg figured out that there is a different way to look at it. Government can default to openness, resorting to secrecy only when the law allows it and it is absolutely necessary.”
RETREAT H—!
There’s nothing like a public body’s out-of-town retreat to rile the local citizenry. Martinsville officials learned that the hard way, after scheduling a strategic planning retreat at South Boston’s Berry Hill Plantation Resort.
Controversy ensued, prompting city officials to move it back to the city.
According to one estimate, the decision to hold the retreat in the hometown saved taxpayers almost $7,000.
VA. POLITICAL BLOGS
For those who can’t figure a way to keep up with Internet bloggers, Charlottesville’s Waldo Jaquith offers some help.
His Waldo blog pulled together the “Virginia Political Blogs” all in one place: www.vapoliticalblogs.com .
At last count, 60 blogs were listed there.
His explanation: “Sometimes I want to just be able to glance over ’em and get the pulse of things. At other times there’s a blog I want to visit, but I just can’t remember its name. So I decided to scratch that itch.”
VPAP: ROAD MAP TO THE $$$’S
If we didn’t have the Virginia Public Access Project’s Web site, we’d have to invent it.
As The Virginian-Pilot commented editorially, “Any citizen can log onto the site and find answers to dozens of questions about how much it costs to run for political office in Virginia, how campaigns are financed, and how the money is spent and who is bankrolling their local delegate or senator. Last year alone, political action committees, corporations and individuals donated about $90 million to political candidates in Virginia. Understanding how that money is being dispersed tells more about public life in the state than a textbook or the handy pamphlet, “How A Bill Becomes A Law.”
VPAP recently received a $20,000 grant from the Verizon Foundation to help develop a more in-depth online mapping application to help track the money in state politics visually.
Now if we could just get quick Internet disclosure of the big dollars at work in local political campaigns! (As an example: a recent contest for three seats on Roanoke City Council exceeded the $300,000 mark.)
The Web site is www.vpap.org .
(Note: VCOG’s Frosty Landon is a VPAP board member.)
WE LOVE GIVING OUT KUDOS
Tell us whether your commuity deserves “Kudos” for open government: citizen participation, FOIA compliance, e-gov initiatives and overall good government policy. E-mail us at vcog@opengovva.org and tell us about a worthwhile program in your area.
Where possible, also include links to newspaper articles or government press releases that can provide additional background. We may include it in our next issue of NEWS.