Transparency News 2/18/16

State and Local Stories

It’s a bill supporters say will help protect police officers across the state. Under a measure that passed the senate this week, the names of police officers would be considered part of personnel records and could be withheld by police departments. The bill was filed after the Virginian-Pilot newspaper requested information about the employment records of police officers, in an effort to see how often officers that got in trouble were able to find other jobs in law enforcement. “We owe it to our police officers to protect them from any kind of, whether it’s credit fraud, or identity theft, or even a threat of retaliation from someone,” said Dana Schrad with Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police. Schrad says undercover officers, officers in the military overseas and in a variety of other cases need to have their identities protected, and this bill would simply give departments that discretion.  “I’m sure every government employee fears some sort of retribution for an action that they’ve taken,” said Megan Rhyne with Virginia Coalition for Open Government. “We’ve got judges, prosecutors, social workers, teachers, principals … ”
WRIC (with video)

A financial disclosure form that state Sen. Thomas K. "Tommy" Norment, R-James City, affirmed was full and complete turned out not to be, understating his stockholdings by at least $400,000, including more than $50,000 worth of stock in Dominion Resources Inc. "We discovered our error because of the Daily Press report and immediately acted to correct it," Norment spokesman Jeff Ryer said. "The error was on our part and we were glad we were able to correct it so quickly," he said. "We take this filing very seriously." Norment discovered the discrepancy after reading a Daily Press report Sunday about legislators' financial interests, based on the incomplete form.
Daily Press

Virginia taxpayers will pick up a $2,435 food and drink tab for a luxury box at last month’s Washington Redskins playoff game, despite a majority of the suite’s unidentified guests attending with no official public purpose, according to state records. To stock the FedEx Field suite, a state economic development agency made an order involving $1,045 for hot dogs, chicken and other food, $656 for Bud Light, Stella Artois and Flying Dog IPA and $198 for soft drinks and water. Just four of the 15 attendees in the box for the Jan. 10 game represented businesses considering expansion in Virginia, according to an invoice that divided the food and drink tab between the Virginia Economic Development Partnership and the office of Secretary of Commerce and Trade Maurice A. Jones. In a response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, VEDP released a heavily redacted version of the guest list showing the names of just two people: Jones and one of his aides.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

Montgomery County supervisors considering cutting the salary of embattled Circuit Court Clerk Erica Williams have her answer to their demands for information — a letter that says she won’t discuss it. In a two-page letter obtained Wednesday by The Roanoke Times, Williams’ attorney told the supervisors she doesn’t have to explain her personnel decisions or account for her work hours, as supervisors demanded. The dispute was touched off by Williams’ decision in December not to reappoint four of the nine deputy clerks in her office. A fifth did not seek reappointment. Questions supervisors leveled last week about high turnover in her office and concerns about her work hours were either too sensitive or vague to be answered publicly, her attorney wrote.
Roanoke Times

After months of back and forth, the negotiations between Franklin County and Preserve Franklin regarding a request made under the Freedom of Information Act have reached a conclusion. The group presented the board of supervisors with a check during Wednesday’s supervisors meeting. The group agreed to pay $400 to have its request— which is much more specific than the original, seeking essentially any and all communications regarding the pipeline from all county employees — fulfilled. The group was told that its original request, filed in August by the Blue Ridge Environment Defense League on Preserve Franklin’s behalf, would have cost $4,800 to fulfill.
Roanoke Times

Albemarle’s prosecutor is a new defendant in an old lawsuit. Robert Tracci  will now decide what happens next in a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed against his predecessor, Denise Lunsford. The Schilling Show blog reports Tracci has been added as a defendant in the suit filed by Tyler Pieron and his attorney, Matt Hardin. The suit says Lunsford violated the Freedom of Information law in her response to an earlier open records request from Pieron. They claim Lunsford withheld information through delay tactics, and that she demanded unreasonable fees for providing documents. Robert Tracci will decide how to respond to both the lawsuit and the original request for records.
WINA

Search warrants executed by police in the death of Nicole Lovell have been sealed by a judge, as the prosecutor in the case says she will continue to consider whether evidence could warrant a capital murder charge. The warrants, which in Virginia are public documents by default, often contain many of the earliest details that seep out of criminal investigations. Instead, documents that may contain key details of the prosecution’s evidence against David Eisenhauer and Natalie Keepers were sealed on Feb. 1 “due to the fact that the investigation is ongoing,” according to the judge’s order.
News & Advance

Mineral Town Council members addressed concerns raised by town resident Ed Kube at its meeting on Monday, Feb. 8. Kube had previously called into question the advertised joint town council and planning commission  meeting that occurred on Jan. 12, and questioned the legality of that meeting. Kube, who is married to council member Bernice Wilson-Kube, was troubled over the planning commission leaving that meeting before the council meeting began, saying that is not proper procedure for a joint meeting.
The Central Virginian

Virginia is ranked second in the country for state procurement practices by the Governing Institute.
Governing

Ginger Stanley, the executive director of the Virginia Press Association since 1988, plans to retire at the end of June. The VPA, a trade association for newspapers in the state, announced Wednesday that its board of directors has started a national search for a successor. Stanley, 67, told the board last summer of her intention to retire in 2016. “I have worked for 44 years — 32 of them at VPA,” Stanley said in a Wednesday interview. “I always said I think I will know when the time is right, and so I am.” “This has been absolutely a dream job — a wonderful career,” said Stanley, who started with the VPA as its advertising director in 1984. She was named executive director four years later.
(Note: Stanley is a founding director of VCOG and still sits on the VCOG board of directors)
Richmond Times-Dispatch


National Stories
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In less than an hour Tuesday morning, the New Mexico Senate Rules Committee killed two good-government proposals, helping cement the Senate’s reputation as the place where ethics and transparency legislation goes to die. One proposal, HJR 5, would have asked voters in November to create a state ethics commission, an idea the New Mexico Legislature has contemplated since 2007. The other, HB 137, would have required lobbyists to report in more detail what they spend on state lawmakers and other public officials. There was not much debate on that  legislation before its quick death.
New Mexico In Depth

A bill that would allow two Colorado colleges’ governing boards to make decisions outside of public meetings is working its way through the Colorado Legislature, but it may see pushback from one of those colleges. House Bill 1259 would allow the boards of trustees for Aims Community College and Colorado Mountain College to “meet” electronically, opening the door for meetings via web portal, email or any other digital platform through which the public would essentially be unable to attend. The bill would allow an exception to the Colorado Open Meetings Law, which clearly bars such meetings that exclude public attendance.
Greeley Tribune

The mayor of the south Texas town of Crystal City, arrested earlier this month on federal corruption charges, was arrested again by his own police department for unruly behavior at a meeting that sought his resignation, police said on Wednesday. Ricardo Lopez was charged with disorderly conduct following a chaotic city council meeting on Tuesday night at which citizens presented petitions calling for the mayor, two other council members and the city manager, all of whom were also indicted, to step down. The meeting was the first since the town that bills itself as "the spinach capital" of the world found that most of its leaders had been indicted in the federal probe. U.S. prosecutors charged the officials with dipping into city coffers for their own personal gain.
Reuters

Editorials/Columns

Sen. Chap Petersen (D-34) cites FOIA on life support in his blog oxroadsouth.com: “Last week, the Assembly passed SB 202, which undid a major push eight years ago to ensure that all of our public spending was ‘online’ and searchable by ordinary citizens. This, of course, meant disclosing the salaries of public employees over a certain income level. However, SB 202 has undone all of that, which means that you will no longer know how much a public employee (even a city manager) is paid unless you make a formal FOIA request. (Because we all have time to do that). “This bad idea passed on a 27-12 vote. “Today the Senate passed SB 552 which is even more sweeping. It actually prohibits from disclosure not just the salary information but even the names of public safety personnel, including the Sheriff, the Chief of Police and the Fire Chief. “On the floor today, I pointed out that a Chief of Police could put his own family on the payroll and be protected from disclosure. This could also be an issue if a law enforcement agency hires an officer with a poor record from another jurisdiction — and nobody knows. Again, who are we protecting?” “Again, the bill passed 25-15.” “If I'm making a veto list, these two are definitely on it.” We agree.
Alexandria Gazette Packet

The indictment and conviction of former Gov. Bob McDonnell forced the General Assembly to take action on ethics reform, though key lawmakers did so kicking and screaming all the while. Now, with the spotlight dimmed, those same lawmakers are poised to roll back even those modest reforms. It seems that keeping them on the straight and narrow requires an ever-watchful eye — much like a babysitter monitors an unruly toddler. Virginia once took pride in its reputation as a good-government state, a modern manifestation of its historical role as the cradle of American democracy and the mother of presidents. It continues to concede that high ground thanks to officials, such as Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment, Sen. Richard H. Black and many others, who treat this issue so cavalierly. While stronger ethics rules may seem “demeaning,” to use a word employed recently by Sen. Black, they are a bulwark against behavior that diminishes confidence in government. That’s a lesson lawmakers must come to understand.
Virginian-Pilot