Transparency News 7/16/13

 

Tuesday, July 16, 2013
 
State and Local Stories

 

Senator Donald McEachin is submitting a Freedom of Information Act request to the Office of the Attorney General last weekasking for all information provided to the Cuccinelli for Governor campaign about the Attorney General’s involvement in matters related to Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams. The Office of the Attorney General shared information with the Cuccinelli campaign which, in turn, released some of that information to the Washington Post. Senator McEachin is requesting that all Virginians be offered the same level of access as Cuccinelli’s campaign, a non-governmental political organization.
Dallas Weekly

Hampton city employees received an email from City Manager Mary Bunting on Monday about a story the Daily Press published on Sunday. The story focused on the highest-paid public employees in local cities, counties and school divisions, looking at their salaries over fiscal years 2011, 2012 and 2013. Bunting called the story inaccurate and provocative in her email, a copy of which was forwarded to the Daily Press. The city manager said the story stated she received raises while other employees did not. The story did not single out Hampton or point to Bunting, but noted that some top earners saw their pay rise while other employees did not.
Daily Press

As the inquiries about Gov. Bob McDonnell’s private finances have grown, so has his response team. Rich Galen, who has handled media relations for Dan Quayle and Newt Gingrich, started late last week as a senior communications adviser to McDonnell’s private legal team. He is not being paid by taxpayers or by the governor’s political action committee.
Times-Dispatch

The 911 dispatcher who was suspended after making a controversial Facebook post about a deadly police shooting has made a public apology. Jessica Camarillo did an interview with WAVY-TV that aired Monday in which she apologized to the family of Joshua "Omar" Johnson, who was killed, and said she didn't mean what she wrote. "It's a really bad joke," she said. "I want to apologize for the hurt that I've caused."
Virginian-Pilot

A recent public notice encouraging Martinsville residents to boil their tap water was confusing, city and state officials have acknowledged. Michael Painter, a district engineer with the Virginia Department of Health’s Office of Drinking Water in Danville, said that in the future, the office will try to do a better job of specifying who is affected when water lines break.
Martinsville Bulletin

A budgeting snafu announced earlier this month and ongoing deliberations about a controversial new logo will be at the center of discussion during Tuesday’s meeting of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors.  The meeting, set to begin at 2 p.m. in the McCoart Administration Building, will also include a presentation on a recently released report from the Bi-Partisan Election Task Force, appointed by supervisors late last year to investigate problems that led to long lines and late closings at several county polling places. Supervisor Pete Candland said he has received “hundreds of documents,” from county staff and is working on a spreadsheet to fully assess how much has been spent on the logo and how it was being implemented.
InsideNOVA.com

Loudoun County Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) today initiated legal action against the governing body on which he serves by filing a complaint in the Loudoun County Circuit Court. The complaint, which lists Delgaudio as the plaintiff and the Loudoun Board of Supervisors as the defendant, requests the local court issue a declaratory judgment and impose an injunction against the Board of Supervisors. An injunction from the circuit court would mean the Board of Supervisors delay or refrain from disciplinary action against Delgaudio.
Loudoun Times-Mirror

Virginians shouldn’t be shocked by the gift-filled relationship between Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams and Gov. Bob McDonnell’s family, one economic policy expert said. The scandal threatening McDonnell’s career is the likely outcome when people believe the governor’s job description entails promoting businesses, said Matthew Mitchell, a senior research fellow with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Fairfax.
Watchdog.org Virginia Bureau

National Stories

In her four years as the top U.S. diplomat, Hillary Clinton kept a running total of countries visited, miles traveled and hours spent in transit on the State Department website. Still untallied: The bill to taxpayers for her globe-trotting. Bloomberg News last year asked for the details of out-of-town trips for the heads of 57 major departments in fiscal 2011, a test of President Barack Obama’s pledge to run the most open government in history. As of July 12, about one-fifth of those surveyed hadn’t responded.
Bloomberg

Kentucky Treasurer Todd Hollenbach is informing the public that several business firms are using the "Freedom of Information Act" to obtain unclaimed property owner information in order to "sell" individuals an unclaimed property search. Treasurer Hollenbach states that, in addition, there are also businesses, sometimes called "finders" or "locators," that find legitimate lost property for owners and offer to help them obtain it for a fee, usually a percentage of the total.
WTVQ

A Texas state appeals court has concluded that a trial court wrongly denied a local television news station’s attempt to dismiss under the state’s anti-SLAPP law a defamation suit filed against it by a former charter school operator. A three-justice panel of the Texas Court of Appeals in Houston found that there was nothing inherently defamatory in reports by ABC affiliate KTRK Television, Inc. concerning Benji’s Special Education Academy. The panel concluded that allegations by the charter school’s founder, Theaola Robinson, that the news station’s reports implied she embezzled $3 million lacked sufficient proof and should be dismissed.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

An award-winning photojournalist faces trespassing charges in Kansas after paragliding over a cattle-filled feedlot on a freelance assignment last month. Veteran photographer George Steinmetz, known for his bird’s eye images of desert landscapes, was arrested by the local authorities after his motorized paraglider landed near Garden City in western Kansas. He was taking pictures for a series on food for National Geographic Magazine. Steinmetz’s flying instructor, Wei Zhang, was also arrested. Both were released from jail after each paid a $270 bond. Finney County Sheriff Kevin Bascue said that Steinmetz and Zhang were arrested not for taking pictures from the air, but for entering private property uninvited before their launch.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Yahoo won a significant victory in its effort to release secret court files from a 2008 case that played an important role in persuading Silicon Valley tech companies to cooperate with U.S. government surveillance programs. In a rare move, the secretive U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court granted Yahoo’s motion to declassify legal briefs and the court’s ruling, which required the company to comply with government requests for records of certain customers’ Internet activity.
Mercury News

Company shareholders seeking details on secret political spending at their corporationshave a friend in Representative Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.). Cartwright last week introduced the Openness in Political Expenditures Now (OPEN) Act, which would force businesses to reveal information on political expenditures to shareholders. The legislation has 20 co-sponsors, all Democrats.
Corporate Counsel

A bill aimed at increasing transparency at the Connecticut Department of Education has been signed into law by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. The bill follows the state auditors' reporting that they are "concerned" with the department's use of an organization not bound by public disclosure or competitive bidding requirements to help craft and implement the governor's controversial education reforms from 2012.
CT Mirror

The Idaho Department of Correction and attorneys representing inmates at the Idaho State Correctional Institution have quietly reached an agreement that could permanently hide from public view records connected to the medical care provided at the prison. The protective order was approved by U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill on Friday in a 32-year-old lawsuit over substandard care and other civil rights violations at ISCI. The order allows the state or the inmates' attorneys to designate any record confidential if they think it's needed to protect trade secrets, medical privacy, or for security reasons. They may also designate a document as confidential if they think the public release would be "unduly detrimental" to the interests of third parties.
Idaho State Journal

Editorials/Columns

Megan Rhyne, VCOG Blog: Columnist Jonah Goldberg wrote last week in USA Today that civil libertarians are hypocrites when it comes to the NSA controversy on the one hand and the Affordable Health Care Act on the other. Now, I can't speak for civil libertarians (or liberals, or conservatives, or even independents), but I can speak for some in the open government and access communities to point out one reason why someone in my position may be more concerned about the former than the latter.

News Leader: Once upon a time Capital Square in Richmond was the land of seersucker in the spring and bowties and bourbon year-round. Gentility and trust – or at least a polite appearance of trust – marked nearly every social interaction. Members of the General Assembly felt no need to police themselves with rigid ethics rules, much less an independent ethics commission. The GA set up these rules: Elected officials can accept gifts of any value from anyone, so long as they properly disclose gifts valued at more than $50. Their family members can also accept presents and are not required to disclose receipt. The McDonnells’ indiscretions have some officials calling for tighter ethics laws, and we hope the July rush for integrity results in long overdue action come January at the General Assembly’s next session. Four of the six candidates running for statewide office this November support a ban on any gift valued at more than $100. At press time Republican candidates for governor and lieutenant governor, Ken Cuccinelli and E.W. Jackson, had not voiced support for such a ban. If lodging and meals at specified educational conferences are excluded, we believe the $100 cap is a good start on closing obvious holes in state government ethics rules.