Transparency News 10/23/18

Tuesday
October 23, 2018

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state & local news stories

“The doctrine of sovereign immunity and separation of powers barred enforcement of FOIA against the office.”

A retired circuit court judge has ruled the Virginia Freedom of Information Act does not apply to the state’s judiciary, a ruling that could potentially hinder access to records of the judicial branch of government, like expense reports or phone bills. The Oct. 15 ruling by retired Judge William N. Alexander II came in a dispute between William H. Turner, who lives on the Eastern Shore, and state officials. Turner had filed a lawsuit requesting records of long-distance phone calls from the Supreme Court of Virginia’s Office of the Executive Secretary. The judge ruled that enforcement of FOIA did not apply to the Office of Executive Secretary and that the doctrine of sovereign immunity and separation of powers barred enforcement of FOIA against the office. In January the Supreme Court of Virginia announced that it would adopt rules regarding access to judicial records. On Friday, four days after the ruling, the court issued a news release saying it planned to adopt new rules about access to court records.
Richmond TImes-Dispatch
Read the opinion letter
This order was issued the same week the OES announced a proposal to govern access to judicial records. Public comment is due by Dec. 3.

A Hopewell judge suspended two members of the city’s elections board Monday after state attorneys said the continued presence of the two officials would cast a “cloud” over the upcoming elections.  Judge William Edward Tomko III ordered that Electoral Board members David Silvestro and Herbert Townes – both Democrats – be temporarily suspended from office until a jury trial can be held to determine if they should be permanently removed for failing to properly perform their duties. Barry Montgomery, an attorney for Silvestro and Townes, asked for the case to be delayed to give the two board members more time to prepare their defense and allow for a jury trial. Montgomery, who said he was only retained in the case late last week, argued Silvestro and Townes should remain in office during the legal proceedings.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

national stories of interest

The 11th Circuit appeals court has just overturned a lower court ruling and said that Georgia’s laws, including annotations, are not covered by copyright, and it is not infringing to post them online. This is big, and a huge win for online information activist Carl Malamud whose Public.Resource.org was the unfortunate defendant in a fight to make sure people actually understood the laws that ruled them. “The resulting work is intrinsically public domain material, belonging to the People, and, as such, must be free for publication by all.”
TechDirt
Read the opinion

“The resulting work is intrinsically public domain material, belonging to the People, and, as such, must be free for publication by all.”

editorials & columns

“That led to criticism that City Council isn’t managing its agenda properly — including the public comment periods in which speakers are allowed to go over their time limits and to verbally attack other speakers or presenters.”

The irony wasn’t lost on us when critics complained that an unexpected police presentation on “stop-and-frisk” data took up too much time at a recent Charlottesville City Council meeting. Two different demands by city activists came into conflict at that moment. Recently, Police Chief RaShall Brackney came under fire from activist Jeff Fogel for not turning over detention data at his request. Less than two weeks later, she appeared at City Council for a surprise report, breaking down recent detention data into several subcategories. You’d think that would be appreciated, right? Wrong. Not everyone was pleased. The surprise report was one of two non-agenda items that were allowed prior to the public comment portion of the meeting. (The other was a report from the Sister Cities Commission.) People who had shown up to have their say grew frustrated at the long and unexpected wait, which perhaps contributed to the disorderly nature of the public comment period when it finally arrived. That led to criticism that City Council isn’t managing its agenda properly — including the public comment periods in which speakers are allowed to go over their time limits and to verbally attack other speakers or presenters.
The Daily Progress