Transparency News 12/18/15

State and Local Stories

SB 32 (Sens. Lucas and Locke). Creates the Virginia Casino Gaming Commission as the licensing body for casino gaming.  Includes a closed meeting exemption for the commission for licensing appeal actions.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?161+sum+SB32

SB 33 (Sens. Lucas and Locke). Creates the Virginia Casino Gaming Commission as the licensing body for casino gaming.  Includes a closed meeting exemption for the commission for licensing appeal actions.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?161+sum+SB33

SB 34 (Sens. Lucas and Locke) Authorizes casino gaming in the state to be regulated by the Virginia Lottery Board (the Board). Includes a closed-meeting exemption.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?161+sum+SB34

(All are related but cover slightly different areas of the overall plan to bring in casino gambling.)

The session calendar bill: http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?161+ful+HJ37

House budget bills
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?161+sum+HB29
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?161+sum+HB30

Senate budget bills
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?161+sum+SB29
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?161+sum+SB30

The mother of a Chesterfield County girl who died of a severe allergic reaction after eating a peanut given to her by another student at school has settled her $10 million wrongful-death lawsuit against a county employee and the state of Virginia for $662,500. In a settlement that was approved by Chesterfield Circuit Judge Lynn S. Brice, the estate of the deceased child, 7-year-old Amarria Denise Johnson, will receive $612,500 from Tanya Fleetwood, a clinic assistant at Hopkins Elementary School, and an additional $50,000 from the state, according to a copy of the final order. Fleetwood’s portion will be paid through Chesterfield’s Risk Management fund, county spokeswoman Susan Pollard confirmed.Chesterfield also has settled a separate, $1.35 million defamation lawsuit that Pendleton had filed against county school officials that alleged they had defamed her with false statements that were widely disseminated to news outlets. The Sept. 28 settlement order was sealed by a Richmond Circuit Court judge, and the county says it cannot disclose the contents because all parties agreed to a confidentiality provision.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

In 2012, U.S. soldiers told Navy SEAL command that they saw SEALs and Afghan police they worked with brutally beating detainees, according to the New York Times. They dropped stones on prisoners’ chests, stood on their heads, poured water on their faces, kicked them, and hit them with antennas and rifle butts. The abuse was so severe that one of the prisoners died within a day. But the SEAL command cleared the members of SEAL Team 2 of wrongdoing, the Times said in a lengthy investigative reported published Thursday, using a closed disciplinary process that is typically used for minor infractions, despite recommendations from a Navy lawyer that the troops face assault charges and a possible court-martial.
Virginian-Pilot


National Stories
​
Former State Department official and longtime Hillary Clinton operative Philippe Reines has repeatedly stated that his email practices at State were aboveboard—even though he was caught lying about using a personal email address to conduct official government business. But new emails obtained by Gawker show that on at least one occasion, Reines discussed skirting the federal open-records law known as the Freedom of Information Act. According to the emails, he told two reporters,“I want to avoid FOIA.” Reines’ attorney dismisses the comment as a joke—but if it was, it was of the funny-because-it’s-true variety. The relevant emails surfaced in the latest round of documents produced by the State Department in response to the lawsuit Gawker filed against the agency earlier this year.
Gawker

To finish an open records request, the Kansas Department for Children and Families told The Topeka Capital-Journal the newspaper would have to pay almost $3,000, a fee criticized by government transparency advocates. The bulk of the bill was an expected $2,400 for legal review of the emails “to ensure no release of information that is subject to KORA (Kansas Open Records Act) exceptions, such as case-specific confidential information,” DCF spokeswoman Theresa Freed wrote in her response. The legal review would require 120 hours, or 15 eight-hour days. Laws about records fees vary across the country, said Dan Bevarly, interim executive director for the National Freedom of Information Coalition. In Texas, government agencies can’t charge for legal review, only clerical and computer work. Georgia also doesn’t charge for legal review but does charge for staff time to redact documents. Tennessee’s and Iowa’s laws are similar to Kansas’s statute and allow labor charges for legal review.
Topeka Capital-Journal

Scott Walker has begun selling access to his email list to pay off his leftover presidential debt, renting out the email addresses of hundreds of thousands of supporters to former rivals, including Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson. The solicitations arrive as if Walker’s donors magically landed on the lists of his old foes, as they plead for cash for themselves, linking to their own campaign sites. But there’s a catch. While it never says so in the emails from his old foes, or anywhere, the money that donors give isn’t necessarily all going to whichever smiling candidate is pictured on the site and writing the email. That is because Walker’s committee has struck secret deals with at least some of his old competitors to split the proceeds — unbeknown to those doing the giving. It’s part of the presidential campaign’s hidden world of digging for donors online, where so-called revenue-sharing agreements — rev-shares, for short — are skyrocketing in popularity.
Politico

A special prosecutor named by Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane to determine whether state officials broke any laws in sending or receiving thousands of inappropriate emails won't shy away from scrutinizing Kane herself, he said on Thursday.
Reuters

Editorials/Columns

This week's roses go to:Del. Rick Morris, R-Carrollton, who wants legislation that would make it a misdemeanor (punishable by up to a year in jail) for any public employee to knowingly and willingly fail to comply with the Freedom of Information Act.
Daily Press

The Virginia Retirement System is backpedaling from a plan that would have allowed the VRS to manage certain retirement funds for some college and university faculty.VRS said it would end management contracts with two established companies that offer options making it easier for faculty to take their retirement programs with them when changing jobs. Instead, VRS wanted to make its own investment decisions while shifting administration of the funds to City Management Association-Retirement Corp. ICMA-RC is led by former VRS Director Robert P. Schultze, who left state government this past February. Protesting Virginia faculty feared that a too cozy relationship between VRS and ICMA-RC might have negated such a firewall. But, then, leaving management with the VRS itself could have had the same effect. Last week VRS said it would “pause implementation” of its original proposal. Instead, it would renegotiate with the two existing fund managers while also moving to offer a third option administered by ICMA-RC. That’s an improvement, certainly. But the fact that VRS proposed the unpopular change in the first place suggests that it already is blind to important money, management and — especially — public relations considerations.
Daily Progress