Transparency News 10/31/16
Monday, October 31, 2016
This week is the deadline to get in your nominations for VCOG's annual open government awards. Nominate your government, media or citizen hero here.
This week is the deadline to get in your nominations for VCOG's annual open government awards. Nominate your government, media or citizen hero here.
State and Local Stories
Between brochures sent out to county households and inserts placed in The News Leader and The News Virginian, the Augusta County Board of Supervisors spent nearly $13,000 to spread information about the upcoming courthouse referendum — without a public vote. Six of the seven supervisors were polled and agreed on the decision to spend the county funds aimed at educating residents with "neutral" information, Supervisor Terry Kelley said. He said they checked with the county attorney, going over the literature to make sure sending it out with taxpayer funding was in compliance with the law and that because of this, they had every right to spend the money and send out the information without a public vote on the matter.
News Leader
The “scoping meetings” in May 2015 included a few boisterous moments. That was true when a project manager for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission declared unequivocally that absolutely no natural gas flowing through the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline would be exported — a statement later contradicted by a partner in the project. This time around, FERC seems determined, pipeline foes say, to limit public commotion during upcoming regional events designed to harvest comment about a draft environmental impact statement for the controversial project. FERC refers to the events as “sessions.” Two of seven public comment sessions are scheduled regionally. One will be Wednesday in Rocky Mount at Franklin County High School and the other is set for Thursday in Roanoke at the Sheraton Hotel off Hershberger Road. Both begin at 5 p.m. That’s when FERC staff will start handing out numbers to people planning to weigh in about the draft environmental impact statement, released by FERC in mid-September. Instead of hosting an open, town hall-style forum, FERC will direct people wanting to comment to a one-on-one conversation in a separate room with a stenographer — a format pipeline foes suggest shuts the public out of the process and eliminates opportunities for people to learn more about the project.
Roanoke Times
The Republican chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives oversight committee has asked a top FBI official to provide records detailing his wife’s run for the Virginia Senate. In a letter dated Thursday, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, asked FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to produce documents and answer questions about his family’s involvement in Democratic politics around the time the FBI was opening an investigation into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Nearly four years after Sen. Mike Crapo’s conviction for drunken-driving, the Idaho Republican finally got a chance to see the police report in his case on Thursday. Police officials and the city attorney in Alexandria had kept the report under wraps since Crapo’s arrest, citing a Virginia state law that allows prosecutors to withhold police records, even from defendants. But after the city denied a request by the Idaho Statesman and McClatchy to gain access to the report under the Freedom of Information Act, Crapo intervened, asking the prosecutor who handled the case to release the report to him. He then shared it with McClatchy.
Idaho Statesman
National Stories
One month after arriving in electronic mailboxes throughout the Delaware State University community, the source of an accusatory email regarding athletic department operations remains a mystery. On Friday the school said there no update on what officials described in late September as a criminal investigation. After the unsubstantiated message alleging football-related NCAA violations was transmitted to students and other DSU community members, the school immediately described it as “containing inaccuracies regarding a University employee” and urged recipients to disregard the message. Other than the email reference to “inaccuracies regarding a University employee,” DSU would not specifically address many of the allegations this week, maintaining that it’s not required legally to inform the public about secondary violations involving its athletic department.
Delaware State News
A conservative-leaning watchdog group sued the FBI Friday after the law enforcement agency ignored a Freedom of Information Act request for records related to the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Judicial Watch filed a FOIA on July 7 for documents that included "all records related to the meeting between Attorney General Lynch and former President Bill Clinton on June 27, 2016." Bill Clinton and Lynch met privately on a Phoenix tarmac in the final days of the email probe after they said their jets unexpectedly landed near each other.
Washington Examiner
Ingham County, Michigan, Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth and Attorney General Bill Schuette's office pushed to delay the public release of documents related to the criminal investigation of former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III. The State Journal obtained those records on Thursday, following a successful appeal to the Ingham County Board of Commissioners. In more than 500 pages, the investigatory reports show Dunnings was engaged in questionable behavior — behavior which was observed by police and other public employees — for years before a formal investigation was launched last year. The county board voted unanimously on Tuesday to release the records without delay."There's been enough secrecy in terms of what's happened in the past couple of years, and it's time for full disclosure," Commissioner Teri Banas said before Tuesday's vote. "It's time to restore the public trust in that particular office." Using the state's Freedom of Information Act, the State Journal requested records from the Ingham County Sheriff's Office on Aug. 2, the day Dunnings pleaded guilty to a felony charge of misconduct in office and to a misdemeanor related to paying for sex.
Lansing State Journal
In a new lawsuit filed by the University of Kentucky against one of its student newspapers, the college claims that simply by reporting on sexual harassment allegations against an associate professor, the paper is discouraging students from coming forward to report other alleged sexual assaults. UK says the Kernel’s reporting is “intimidating” victims of assault, and effectively dissuading them from bringing their cases to the university’s “Intervention and Prevention Center,” which investigates sexual assault allegations.
Fox News
News Leader
The “scoping meetings” in May 2015 included a few boisterous moments. That was true when a project manager for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission declared unequivocally that absolutely no natural gas flowing through the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline would be exported — a statement later contradicted by a partner in the project. This time around, FERC seems determined, pipeline foes say, to limit public commotion during upcoming regional events designed to harvest comment about a draft environmental impact statement for the controversial project. FERC refers to the events as “sessions.” Two of seven public comment sessions are scheduled regionally. One will be Wednesday in Rocky Mount at Franklin County High School and the other is set for Thursday in Roanoke at the Sheraton Hotel off Hershberger Road. Both begin at 5 p.m. That’s when FERC staff will start handing out numbers to people planning to weigh in about the draft environmental impact statement, released by FERC in mid-September. Instead of hosting an open, town hall-style forum, FERC will direct people wanting to comment to a one-on-one conversation in a separate room with a stenographer — a format pipeline foes suggest shuts the public out of the process and eliminates opportunities for people to learn more about the project.
Roanoke Times
The Republican chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives oversight committee has asked a top FBI official to provide records detailing his wife’s run for the Virginia Senate. In a letter dated Thursday, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, asked FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to produce documents and answer questions about his family’s involvement in Democratic politics around the time the FBI was opening an investigation into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Nearly four years after Sen. Mike Crapo’s conviction for drunken-driving, the Idaho Republican finally got a chance to see the police report in his case on Thursday. Police officials and the city attorney in Alexandria had kept the report under wraps since Crapo’s arrest, citing a Virginia state law that allows prosecutors to withhold police records, even from defendants. But after the city denied a request by the Idaho Statesman and McClatchy to gain access to the report under the Freedom of Information Act, Crapo intervened, asking the prosecutor who handled the case to release the report to him. He then shared it with McClatchy.
Idaho Statesman
National Stories
One month after arriving in electronic mailboxes throughout the Delaware State University community, the source of an accusatory email regarding athletic department operations remains a mystery. On Friday the school said there no update on what officials described in late September as a criminal investigation. After the unsubstantiated message alleging football-related NCAA violations was transmitted to students and other DSU community members, the school immediately described it as “containing inaccuracies regarding a University employee” and urged recipients to disregard the message. Other than the email reference to “inaccuracies regarding a University employee,” DSU would not specifically address many of the allegations this week, maintaining that it’s not required legally to inform the public about secondary violations involving its athletic department.
Delaware State News
A conservative-leaning watchdog group sued the FBI Friday after the law enforcement agency ignored a Freedom of Information Act request for records related to the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Judicial Watch filed a FOIA on July 7 for documents that included "all records related to the meeting between Attorney General Lynch and former President Bill Clinton on June 27, 2016." Bill Clinton and Lynch met privately on a Phoenix tarmac in the final days of the email probe after they said their jets unexpectedly landed near each other.
Washington Examiner
Ingham County, Michigan, Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth and Attorney General Bill Schuette's office pushed to delay the public release of documents related to the criminal investigation of former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III. The State Journal obtained those records on Thursday, following a successful appeal to the Ingham County Board of Commissioners. In more than 500 pages, the investigatory reports show Dunnings was engaged in questionable behavior — behavior which was observed by police and other public employees — for years before a formal investigation was launched last year. The county board voted unanimously on Tuesday to release the records without delay."There's been enough secrecy in terms of what's happened in the past couple of years, and it's time for full disclosure," Commissioner Teri Banas said before Tuesday's vote. "It's time to restore the public trust in that particular office." Using the state's Freedom of Information Act, the State Journal requested records from the Ingham County Sheriff's Office on Aug. 2, the day Dunnings pleaded guilty to a felony charge of misconduct in office and to a misdemeanor related to paying for sex.
Lansing State Journal
In a new lawsuit filed by the University of Kentucky against one of its student newspapers, the college claims that simply by reporting on sexual harassment allegations against an associate professor, the paper is discouraging students from coming forward to report other alleged sexual assaults. UK says the Kernel’s reporting is “intimidating” victims of assault, and effectively dissuading them from bringing their cases to the university’s “Intervention and Prevention Center,” which investigates sexual assault allegations.
Fox News
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