Transparency News 6/17/16
State and Local Stories
A woman incarcerated at Hampton Roads Regional Jail who was transferred to a state hospital last month after a mental health crisis died within 24 hours of admission, according to Virginia’s top health official. Central State Hospital workers found the woman dead in bed the morning after she arrived for court-ordered care, Dr. William A. Hazel Jr., the state’s secretary of health and human resources, said Thursday in a sit-down interview in his fourth-floor office at the Patrick Henry Building. His comments and follow-up emails from other state officials Thursday marked a shift in the state’s response to questions about the death, which multiple agencies had allowed to go largely unanswered over the past week. Officials still decline to identify the woman, citing federal privacy protections involving health care records.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Wheelabrator Technologies wants to know why Portsmouth rejected its trash disposal bid without explanation. The city’s purchasing administrator, Michael Ammons, said during a Tuesday work session with the City Council that his department received two bids and rejected both. He didn’t explain why, even to council members, citing a city code that precluded him from doing so.
Virginian-Pilot
Patriot High School Principal Michael Bishop won a reprieve of sorts from the Prince William County School Board Wednesday, but an investigation continues into allegations that he used school resources to send emails and do other work for the Gainesville-area youth baseball league he leads. Before a crowd of about 75 people who showed their support for Bishop by wearing Patriot Pioneers’ red, the School Board voted 7 to 0 to rescind a June 6 “board poll,” that had placed Bishop’s contract on hold pending the investigation. School Board Chairman Ryan Sawyers (At Large) abstained from the vote. Sawyers is being sued by Bishop for defamation of character relating to tensions between Bull Run Little League and the Gainesville Haymarket Baseball League. Sawyers is president of BLL, while Bishop is president of GHBL.
Inside NOVA
Unveiled in late May, a plan by regional leaders will create a Metrorail safety oversight body with power to investigate problems but also the power to meet in secret and withhold its findings from the public.
D.C. Open Government Coalition
The draft legislation is here
National Stories
Amid growing criticism of Connecticut officials' possible conflicts of interest with a proposed Cigna-Anthem merger, Gov. Dannel Malloy signed a bill that effectively withholds any merger information from the public, according to the International Business Times. The law, attached to unrelated dental and health legislation, was passed discreetly in the middle of the night last Thursday and signed by Gov. Malloy Friday without public statement. This occurred the same day Gov. Malloy rejected an open records request made by grassroots groups, who previously urged the governor to oust the state's Insurance Commissioner Katharine Wade on grounds of her previous affiliation with Cigna and familial ties with Cigna employees. The law would allow Mrs. Wade to keep documents about health insurers under wraps throughout the merger. Mrs. Wade said the bill was introduced in February, before Cigna and Anthem donated $360,000 into the Democratic Governors Association, which Gov. Malloy chairs.
Becker Hospital Review
Photos from more than a decade ago of former President Bill Clinton and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump will be released this fall by the Clinton Presidential Library, the National Archives told ABC News. The official White House photos were taken in the summer of 2000 when Clinton visited Trump Tower for a political fundraiser for former New York Representative Ed Towns. The White House photographed the two again a few months later at the U.S. Open. The photos show the men together at the events. The National Archives says the photos will be released on Sept. 9 at 9 a.m. and will be made available to the public. The release comes in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from Buzzfeed for photos of Trump and Clinton.
ABC News
Editorials/Columns
Heroes emerge in all different ways. Some stand in front of tanks, and others charge into burning buildings. Brian Covington refused to accept a free steak dinner. It's more complicated than that, of course. But in a way, it is as simple as knowing right from wrong and acting on it. Mr. Covington, we learned last week, was the Hampton police officer whose honesty helped put a stop to the notorious Blue Water Tobacco fiasco, which started out as a well-intentioned sting targeting illegal state-to-state cigarette trafficking and devolved into a 19-month fiasco in which $4 million flowed through the operation without a single arrest. The role of whistleblower is not an easy one to play, but our society needs them.
Daily Press
