Transparency News 4/8/16
State and Local Stories
A Surry County Circuit Court judge ruled in favor of the town of Claremont, its mayor and three other town officials last week in a Freedom of Information case the judge and defense attorney called “trivial.” At stake — $10.92. Donna Skinner, a member of Claremont’s Town Council, brought the suit last year against the town, its mayor, vice mayor, town clerk and a fellow council member after claiming to have had her rights under the Freedom of Information Act violated. After an eight-hour, document-laden trial, Judge Nathan Curtis Lee dismissed all three counts brought against the town and its officials. Lee said the town had tried its best to work within the legal bounds of FOIA considering Skinner “was overwhelming the town with FOIA requests.”
Smithfield Times
Six current and former Virginia senators were found in contempt Thursday by a Richmond circuit court judge for refusing to surrender records in the latest challenge to legislative gerrymandering. The judge, W. Reilly Marchant, imposed a fine on each senator of $100 per day. However, the fine will be suspended until an appeals court — perhaps the Virginia Supreme Court — decides the issue behind the senators’ refusal to produce the documents: Whether the lawmakers are protected by the Virginia Constitution from questioning in legal proceedings because it could divert attention from the public duties. A seventh senator, Richard H. Stuart, R-Stafford, said several hours later that he is complying with Marchant's order, issued earlier this year, to turn over the records, sparing Stuart from a contempt decree. Marchant’s order was not unexpected and had been sought by lawyers for the senators. They want the state’s highest courts to determine whether the legislators’ official privilege, in this instance, would allow them to keep confidential their communications with staff.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
A dozen students demanding a tuition freeze disrupted a budget workshop of the Virginia Commonwealth University board of visitors on Thursday. At the close of the session, the students who had silently held protest signs through much of the meeting began speaking out about the debt they are incurring and the hardships they face because of college costs. Ogaldez urged VCU President Michael Rao to take “a hard look at where the money is going” and asked for greater transparency so that “we do not have to publicly disrupt your meetings.”
Richmond Times-Dispatch
“Opposition research,” in which political candidates dig for dirt on each other, is a common part of modern campaigns. Usually it happens quietly. But the process became public on Thursday, with a backer of one mayoral candidate going to court to accuse an opponent of withholding records about himself. Councilman Andy Protogyrou’s supporter filed a petition Thursday in Norfolk Circuit Court alleging Sheriff Bob McCabe has violated the state’s Freedom of Information Act by refusing to turn over some records and imposing excessive fees for others. The court petition was filed on behalf of Ted Tzavellas, who gave $1,100 to Protogyrou’s mayoral campaign last year. And it was drafted by London Crounse, an attorney in Protogyrou’s law firm. McCabe said he could not discuss details of the allegations because they’re now in court. But, he said: “Since I’ve been sheriff, we’ve complied with any FOIA request that we’ve received to the letter of the law.”
Virginian-Pilot
For a long time, citizens of Charlottesville and Albemarle attempting to contact their elected representatives through official city and county web sites have been deceived. The Schilling Show recently discovered that emails sent to the following entities have been blind copied to previously undisclosed recipients. Inquiries on this covert practice to spokespersons for the four named bodies yielded generally positive responses. Each entity has since altered their respective web sites to disclose a complete email recipient list, thus allowing citizens—who do not wish their correspondence clandestinely directed to non-elected officials—to instead use individual Board and Council member email addresses.
Schilling Show
The Shenandoah County School Board has filed a lawsuit against Sheriff Timothy C. Carter demanding that Carter let board members view a videotape of possible student misconduct on a bus carrying members of the boys’ junior varsity and varsity basketball teams at Strasburg High School. The suit filed on March 31 also seeks to make the bus videotape available to a few students and their parents. The students are those in the midst of disciplinary proceedings launched by school authorities as a result of behavior reportedly captured on the video. School, law enforcement or court records containing information linking specific juveniles to alleged criminal wrongdoing are almost always withheld from the public, except in certain felony cases. But School Board members commonly review student conduct in closed sessions when administrators recommend suspensions, expulsions or other disciplinary actions. A Sheriff’s Office report on a meeting Monday between two investigators and the parents of one of the defendants states that the student’s parents did not want the video released outside the “judicial process.”
Northern Virginia Daily
In the Old Dominion, fancy gifts are out, but luxury fundraisers are still in. An Associated Press analysis of campaign finance records shows Virginia's elected officials have hosted birthday blowouts, high-dollar hunting and fishing trips, and expensive golf tournaments in efforts to raise money. The fundraising occurred while lawmakers were putting new limits on gifts they could take from lobbyists and others after a scandal involving a former governor. Many Virginia legislators said they need to throw attention-getting fundraisers to attract lobbyists and donors, who are inundated with constant requests. "As a candidate, you owe them a little bit more than a table wafer and a piece of cheese," said state Sen. Bill Stanley, who has reported spending more than $11,000 on hunting and fishing fundraisers in the last two years. Critics say the limits on gifts have done little to change the political culture: Instead of spoiling lawmakers with sports tickets and vacations, businesses are helping subsidize luxurious fundraisers. And campaign finance filings provide scant details, making it impossible to determine if those fundraisers make money, break even or even net a loss.
AP, Loudoun Times-Mirror
National Stories
For all the ways government affects young people, there still aren’t many avenues for them to influence public policy. But that's less true in Cook County, Ill., where a youth advisory board has become an in-house think tank for improving the local juvenile justice system. Three years ago, a group of high school- and college-age students in Cook County spent a summer studying ways to ease the transition from youth detention centers back to the community. The students found that a lot of young people didn't know they were eligible to have their records expunged, and the ones who did still weren't sure how to start the process. The students wanted to make the process more accessible, so they created Expunge.io, a free website and smartphone app that helps Cook County residents erase their records of arrests, charges and minor convictions that happened before they were 18 years old.
Governing
A case that began in the wood-paneled meeting room in the village of Oakley will be heard in the chambers of Michigan's highest court, where justices will consider defining the term "public official" in how it applies to the state's Open Meetings Act. The proceedings began three years ago in April 2013, when Hemlock attorney Philip L. Ellison sued Oakley village Clerk Cheryl Bolf on behalf of Oakley resident Shannon Bitterman, alleging violations from a closed meeting in November 2012. The trustees held a closed meeting that violated the Open Meetings Act, the lawsuit alleges, and Bolf improperly made changes to meeting minutes, intentionally violating the act. Attorneys representing Bolf argue she is not considered a public official for the purposes of the Open Meetings Act.
MLive
The identities of school personnel who carry weapons could be kept secret under legislation passed Monday by the Oklahoma House of Representatives. Senate Bill 1036, by Sen. Jason Smalley, R-Stroud, exempts records containing those names from the Oklahoma Open Records and Open Meetings Acts. It is a followup to a bill passed last year allowing schools to arm teachers and other personnel. The provision is intended primarily for small, remote districts with little or no on-site security and limited access to law enforcement.
Tulsa World
Editorials/Columns
Last year, Virginia lawmakers killed half of all the bills rejected in the General Assembly by unrecorded voice votes. Newspapers and good-government groups objected to the secrecy, pointing out that the public had a right to know how legislators being paid with public funds to enact public policy were voting in public bodies. Legislators were not exactly chastened. This year two-thirds of all the bills that died were killed with unrecorded votes. Most of that furtive behavior occurred in the House of Delegates. But the state Senate does not deserve any laurels — not after Majority Leader Tommy Norment’s petty campaign against press access.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Each generation of Americans entrusts to the next protection of the freedoms essential to our democratic republic. Most prominent are those enumerated in the First Amendment to the Constitution: the freedoms of religion, speech, the press and peaceable assembly, and the right to petition the government. This week, the Knight Foundation, in association with the Newseum Institute and Gallup, released a poll examining the attitudes of today’s college students on those foundational rights. It is compelling subject matter. The nation has seen campuses roiled by protest, some articulating disparate and incompatible ideas about what constitutes free expression or protected speech. These have included novel notions of “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” — a new vocabulary to describe a new diminution of essential rights. That emerging perspective is reflected in the contradictions illuminated by this poll.
Virginian-Pilot
Gov. Terry McAuliffe has often used his executive authority to veto or amend bills that he finds objectionable. We urge him to carefully consider amending or vetoing language in the state’s two-year budget bill that prevents the privately owned Dahlgren Railroad Heritage Trail from becoming part of nearby Caledon State Park. What’s not clear is which member of the Virginia Senate put the amendment in the budget bill, or why the Virginia General Assembly allows measures to be submitted anonymously. This practice flies in the face of transparency in state government that the legislators say they support. It should be stopped. Despite efforts by elected officials in King George to learn the identity of the author, and a state Freedom of Information Act request filed by the nonprofit Friends of the DHRT, the sponsor remains a mystery. That’s right; no one will own up to it. That stinks.
Free Lance-Star
Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld says he wants the new Customer Accountability Report to be “a living thing.” This ambitious effort to outline service goals and then report progress was born just last month. The document is so extensive that it will take a great deal of care to maintain, so it’s good to see that the report has gotten an update. To see the full report, go to the Metro website, which is an overview of Wiedefeld’s goals, then scroll down to the links at the bottom and click on “Customer Accountability Report (CARe).” You will get a pdf version. I wish a document so potentially important to Metro’s effort at transparency was more prominently displayed on the transit authority’s website.
Dr. Gridlock, Washington Post
