Transparency News 10/1/15

Thursday, October 1, 2015
 

State and Local Stories

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Legislation is coming to rework Virginia's Freedom of Information Act in the wake of a state Supreme Court decision that seems to allow government officials to withhold more records from the public. A first draft will likely be discussed next month, when the state's Freedom of Information Council meets. The council's chairman and vice chair — both state legislators — said Wednesday that legislation is probably needed after the Supreme Court's decision in a case filed by another General Assembly member. The decision in that case, Department of Corrections v. Surovell, seems to do away with much of the government's duty to redact and release documents under the state's open records act. Absent specific language in the act demanding this step, public officials can simply withhold entire records to protect snippets that are legitimately exempt from release, the court's majority found.
Daily Press

In a change of heart, Governor Terry McAuliffe released the Virginia State Police investigation report of Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control agents’ March 18 arrest of UVA student Martese Johnson, the bloody image of which went viral. When he initially declined to make the report public, McAuliffe claimed the Freedom of Information Act prohibited release of personnel records. Johnson’s still weighing whether to sue, according to his attorney, UVA law grad Daniel Watkins with Williams Mullen. Watkins applauded the release of the investigation. “Now, more than ever, transparency is important when reviewing the propriety of any police-citizen encounter,” he says in a statement. And, says Watkins, the broader question still stands: “[H]ow much force should police be permitted to use when investigating regulatory offenses?
C-VILLE Weekly

He may not have a Facebook page or a Twitter account, but Woodrow Wilson will someday have a larger digital presence than some towns when 38,400 documents from his government and academic sources go digital. A partnership between the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, Princeton University Press and the University of Virginia Press will digitize the 28th president’s documents in two phases, according to WWPL Marketing Manager Robert R. Robinson.
News Virginian

Attorneys for a convicted serial killer facing the death penalty in Virginia moved Wednesday to halt the 49-year-old's execution by challenging the state's use of lethal injection drugs that it obtained from Texas. The state plans to execute Alfredo Prieto on Thursday after Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe rejected an attempt earlier this week to delay the death sentence. The El Salvador native was on death row in California for raping and murdering a 15-year-old girl when DNA evidence linked him to the 1988 slaying of a young couple in Virginia. In a lawsuit, Prieto's attorneys asked the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to stay the execution until officials disclose more information about the pentobarbital it intends to use — including the name of the supplier, tests confirming its sterility and potency and documents showing that the drugs were properly handled, transported and stored.
Virginian-Pilot


National Stories
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A memo directing Vermont commissioners, agency secretaries and their employees to call Gov. Peter Shumlin’s office before they respond to media inquiries was never intended to muzzle anybody, according to the governor’s office. Darren Springer, Shumlin’s new chief of staff, sent the private memo urging state officials to reach out to Scott Coriell, the governor’s press secretary, before calling news reporters, conducting interviews, or writing opinion pieces for newspapers. The Sept. 10 memo, uncovered by the Burlington Free Press, told the commissioners and secretaries in part, “First, I wanted to remind folks that as much as is possible we want to have strong coordination between you and your staff, and Scott Coriell in the Governor’s office ... before responding to media inquiries.” Springer goes on to write, “This will ensure we have consistent messages and information going out publicly.”
Burlington Free Press

The Associated Press will receive $400,000 from the Knight Foundation, Knight announced Wednesday. The money will go toward spreading the use of data journalism and creating a set of standards that will be included in the 2017 AP Stylebook, according to a press release, “focusing on style, ethics and standards. Additionally, it will create an online portal where customers can download market-specific information.” With the money, the AP will hire additional data journalists, create more data-driven projects and increase collaboration with local newsrooms.
Poynter


Editorials/Columns

THE ADMINISTRATIVE investigation into state Alcoholic Beverage Control agents' arrest of a University of Virginia student, whose bloodied face was captured in images that attracted national attention earlier this year, was finally released last week. In that regard, Gov. Terry McAuliffe's administration did the right thing. After weeks of counterproductive obstruction and dithering, it released 119 pages of records, including summaries of witness reports, agents' testimony, details about the agents' training, and more. That's no small matter, given the frequent disregard demonstrated across levels and branches of Virginia's government toward the state's Freedom of Information Act. The delay, defined by officials' semantic jiujitsu to keep public information secret, inflamed suspicions and undermined the credibility of authorities who shouldn't have had anything to hide. The report certainly suggests as much.
Virginian-Pilot

Today, though, we have some questions. Not accusatory questions. Not even rhetorical questions. But actual, honest, heartfelt questions we’d like to pose in a Socratic fashion. The first is: What is academic freedom? That question comes to mind because of the flare-up at Radford University, where some faculty members don’t think they have enough input into the search for a new president. Letter-writer Paul Thomas of Radford put it this way: “I am suggesting that the Radford University presidential search, as it is currently being conducted, is not just a violation of shared governance, it is also an attack on academic freedom.” Is this really so?Public colleges are not medieval cloisters of scholars who get to elevate one of their own to preside; they are major arms of state government. They are also increasingly agents of economic development, and so serve more than just an educational function. Our letter writer speaks of how “shared governance is all about the effort to balance the voices of faculty, staff and administration in decision-making processes important to the university.” We’d gently suggest that perhaps the voices who matter most are those of taxpayers who want to make sure they’re getting their money’s worth out of a state university. 
Roanoke Times