Transparency News 9/18/14
State and Local Stories
Get ready for VCOG’s annual conference. Read about our anticipated panels and panelists. Heck, go ahead and register, too!
VCOG
The mystery behind the sudden departure of the city’s chief administrative officer, Byron Marshall, is taking an "Inception"-like turn. City officials already went to unusual lengths to keep quiet the circumstances surrounding Marshall’s resignation, requiring City Council members to visit an outside employment law attorney to sign a confidentiality agreement before they could be briefed on the situation. Now the mayor’s office says that the confidentiality agreement itself is confidential. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Style for a copy of the contract that council members were signing, the mayor’s press secretary, Tammy Hawley, argues that it’s exempt from release. In an email, Hawley says the document is protected under the city’s attorney-client privilege. She also says it qualifies as a personnel record.
Style Weekly
Former Richmond official Sharon Judkins submitted a new legal filing seeking information about the actions of Mayor Dwight C. Jones and his inner circle on the same day that former Chief Administrative Officer Byron C. Marshall left his post at City Hall. The interrogatory filing in Judkins’ $10.7 million defamation lawsuit against City Auditor/Inspector General Umesh Dalal seeks a wide variety of information and documents tied to Dalal’s investigation into Marshall’s attempt to boost Judkins’ pension by about $400,000. It’s unlikely that the interrogatory filing, a standard method of acquiring information in the discovery phase of a legal case, is the direct cause of Marshall’s abrupt departure. But the document makes clear that the defamation suit against the auditor could bring more unflattering information to light about the Marshall-Judkins matter. Truth is a defense against defamation, and Dalal’s likely response will be to try to show proof that the concerns raised in his report were justified.
Times-Dispatch
Sen. Mark Warner apparently hates wasted paper – and with his initiative to eliminate or revise more than 50 unnecessary, outdated or redundant reports by federal agencies to Congress, he’s found plenty of agreement on Capitol Hill. In a unanimous vote, the Senate passed a House of Representatives version of his proposal this week. “Continuing to produce outdated or duplicate government reports year after year is a waste of time and taxpayer money. This represents a solid start, and I am grateful to see such strong bipartisan support for eliminating or modifying at least 50 of them,” Warner said. “Federal agencies should be focused on delivering results for taxpayers instead of wasting time and resources producing reports that nobody uses or even reads.” Among the eliminated or revised reports are those dealing with:
Daily Press
Buchanan has as its first town manager a planner with a fondness for small towns and a keen interest in economic development. The town council named Mary Zirkle to the post. She joined Roanoke County’s planning staff earlier this year after a long stint as the chief planner for Bedford County. “We have the first town manager in our 200-plus-year existence,” said Buchanan Mayor Larry Hall. “We’re excited.”
Roanoke Times
Hours after turning herself in on six felony charges, Charlottesville’s top election official sat quietly in her office Wednesday afternoon with the blinds drawn. Ten minutes before closing time, Registrar Sheri Iachetta walked out. She did not speak to a reporter. Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander surrendered to police earlier in the day. Iachetta is accused of misuse of public funds and assets. Her charges could net her a total of 60 years in prison. Commander faces up to four years on four felony embezzlement charges, according to code sections provided in a release from Nelson County Commonwealth’s Attorney Anthony Martin, named as a special prosecutor in the case. The women are accused of using city tax money to cover more than $7,000 in bills for city-issued cellphones for people who no longer held positions with the city — Commander, who left the Electoral Board three years ago and Pat Owen, Iachetta’s husband, who left a job with the registrar’s office five years ago.
Daily Progress
One day, members of the county board of supervisors may be able to take part in meetings without being in Chatham. The Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors is considering whether to change its bylaws to allow individual members to participate in public meetings remotely. The board voted 5-2 to consider the change during its meeting Tuesday night. The board members will vote on it again during their meeting Oct. 6. Chatham-Blairs Supervisor Brenda Bowman, who proposed the idea, said the change would provide individual supervisors a choice whether to participate in a meeting via computer or other electronic means in case of an emergency or during vacation. Westover Supervisor Coy Harville, who serves on the Legislative Committee, said he opposed the idea and went on to vote against recommending the change to the full board. He also voted against considering the change during the board’s meeting Tuesday night. “I don’t think it’s appropriate,” Harville said. If a member is sick or taking care of an ailing relative, Harville said he doesn’t see why they would want to be taking part in a meeting.
Register & Bee
National Stories
Expressing concern that prominent think tanks may be covertly trying to push the agendas of foreign government donors, the House of Representatives is considering a rule that would require that their scholars testifying on Capitol Hill disclose any such support — a proposal that won immediate bipartisan endorsement on Wednesday. Representative Jackie Speier, Democrat of California, who drafted the proposal, said lawmakers had a right to know when a foreign government was financing a scholar’s research, even if the foreign government did not control the scholar’s recommendations.New York Times
Wednesday was Constitution Day, which prompted House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa to post the document’s entire 4,400 words on Twitter. The exercise to celebrate the document signed in 1787 took about six hours and hundreds of tweets in 140-character bursts.
USA Today
Editorials/Columns
Admit it, Portsmouth City Council members: You made a lousy hire. Don't compound your mistake by keeping City Auditor Jesse Andre Thomas on the payroll. You've given Thomas repeated chances to complete reviews since he began "working" more than 17 months ago. He's failed to turn over any audits to the council during that period, several of you told me this week. Why in the world does he continue to draw his $92,000 salary? Local taxpayers are angry - and they should be.Roger Chesley
Congress has returned from a month-long recess with a full plate and few legislative days left. Although it faces many competing priorities, Congress must pass the FOIA Improvement Act of 2014, a bill that enjoys bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate. If enacted, this legislation truly will be a game changer, restoring the Freedom of Information Act to its original intended purpose of offering a “check against corruption” and “hold[ing] the governors accountable to the governed,” in the words of the Supreme Court. Obama entered office pledging to run the most transparent administration in modern history, something that depended on the proper administration of the FOIA. Attorney General Holder followed up with a policy directive outlining how the FOIA would be used to achieve that openness. But this promise has yet to be fulfilled. What neither may have anticipated is the long-entrenched reluctance of agencies to reveal their inner workings, which has left secrecy, not disclosure, as the default under the FOIA.
Anne L. Weismann, Roll Call
