Transparency News 2/8/16
Monday, February 8, 2016
State and Local Stories
A state senator wants to protect parts of a constitutionally required report from wide dissemination. Senate Bill 667 would forbid General Assembly staff from posting sections of an annual report detailing the governor's pardon decisions. Sponsoring state Sen. Richard Black said he doesn't want details of these pardoned crimes available on the Internet after they've been expunged. Black, R-Leesburg, cited a case involving an Iranian immigrant who converted from Islam to Christianity. Gov. Jim Gilmore pardoned the man, and the charges against him were later expunged, Black said. But his conversion was mentioned in the pardon report, which the governor is required to send the General Assembly each session to explain pardons and clemency decisions. The legislature posts this report, and hundreds more, to its website as a matter of course. Now the man's family is in peril in Iran because of anger over his conversion, Black said.
Daily Press
National Stories
A Republican pollster warned the University of Iowa a year ago that its public standing was suffering from an image as a heavy-drinking school where sexual assault was too common, according to a report obtained by The Associated Press that school officials have withheld from the public. Washington-based pollster Chris Perkins told university leaders that those perceptions meant the school was no longer considered safe by some parents and students, and had lost some credibility "as a serious academic institution." Perkins, who received the polling work under a controversial university no-bid contract with a GOP insider, recommended specific messages for a communications strategy to combat the image. The university won't release documents detailing polls and focus groupsconducted by Perkin's [sic] firm, Wilson Perkins Allen. The AP obtained the undated report from a university employee who requested anonymity because the school didn't authorize its disclosure.
ABC News
The Pentagon released 198 photos Friday, several of which appear to show injuries suffered by detainees after allegedly experiencing abuse while held in Iraq and Afghanistan during the George W. Bush administration. Department of Defense spokesperson Cmdr. Gary Ross said that the photos originated from independent criminal investigations into allegations of misconduct by U.S. personnel. The release of the photos was the result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union brought against the Defense Department in 2004.
CNN
Colorado's marijuana business owners — nearly 1,200 of them — control a quickly growing and powerful industry that is approaching $1 billion in annual sales. Yet basic information about these entrepreneurs is not available to the public without paying hefty fees, in contrast to what is available about owners of other state-licensed businesses. The Marijuana Enforcement Division of the Colorado Department of Revenue will disclose the names of those with ownership interests in more than 2,500 active medical and recreational marijuana licenses issued since 2014. But the agency will not provide a list that connects owners with their businesses — information it has provided to The Denver Post in the past — or disclose the size of their ownership stakes, what kinds of marijuana licenses they hold and how many businesses they own. In response to several public information requests from The Post, the state said it would provide that information one name at a time at a cost of about $10,000.
Denver Post
Sumner County (Tenn.) Schools' most recent legal bills show the district has spent more than $113,000 defending an open records case now headed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals. Sumner school board members voted unanimously on Dec. 1, 2015 to appeal Judge Dee David Gay’s ruling that the district violated the Tennessee Public Records Act when it refused a Joelton man’s records request. The suit was filed in April 2014 by Ken Jakes, of Joelton, after Sumner schools spokesman Jeremy Johnson denied Jakes' request to view the school system’s policy on open records. Johnson denied the request because Jakes asked to view the policy over email and in a voicemail rather than in person or by U.S. Postal Service.
The Tennesseean
Editorials/Columns
Most of us have no inside information on what day-to-day life is like for the worker bees inside the Norfolk treasurer’s office, but it must be odd. After all, City Treasurer Anthony Burfoot has been forbidden – by a federal judge – to speak to those employees who might testify at his trial that’s to begin May 3. Shoot, a clerk on that witness list could put his feet on the desk and go to sleep and Burfoot would have to keep mum. At worst, send him a stern memo. Which raises the obvious questions: How does an office serve the people efficiently when the man in charge is under a gag order? And what exactly is the role of a spokesman who isn’t allowed to speak with his boss? The situation might make an entertaining “Saturday Night Live” skit, but it isn’t amusing when the office involved is funded by the public and is charged with the serious business of collecting taxes.
Kerry Dougherty, Virginian-Pilot
