Transparency News 1/27/17
Friday, January 27, 2017
State and Local Stories
State and Local Stories
Without public input, the House Rules Committee quickly cast aside a bill that would require every bill, resolution and budget amendment passing through the House of Delegates receive a recorded vote. For the second year in a row, the bill died without a clear record of where each committee member stands. Cline brought the same bill to the same committee last year. Megan Rhyne, Virginia Coalition for Open Government executive director, testified in favor of it then. She was present this year but not offered a chance to speak. When asked why Virginia residents who came to testify were not offered the opportunity to do so Thursday, Howell said he didn't know. “I guess no one stood up and said they wanted to speak,” Howell said. It's the patron’s responsibility to make that offer, he said. When asked why nobody got to speak, Cline said he didn’t know. House Minority Leader David Toscano, D-Charlottesville, again asked why Cline hasn’t asked for a rules change on the floor.
News & Advance
The secrecy of the Peninsula Airport Commission's discussion of its multimillion-dollar support of People Express and its decision to guarantee a loan to the startup airline, a deal that cost it $4.5 million, reflect a lack of openness and raise serious questions about how the group deals with public funds, political scientists and open-government advocates say. The commission guaranteed a line of credit from TowneBank to the startup airline, which had already been sued by American Express because it owed $50,546 on two credit cards. To support air service to New York and Boston, the commission also spent some $425,000 in advertising; the airline also was promised $700,000 in incentives from local governments. People Express also borrowed $985,000 from W.M. Jordan Co. but in the end, the airline flew for less than three months. Commission members apparently discussed the loan guarantee behind closed doors before granting then-Chairwoman LaDonna Finch the power "to do and commit any act ... the Chair deems necessary" to provide for air service and general business at Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport.
Daily Press
Richmond Sheriff C.T. Woody Jr. faces monetary sanctions and other penalties after failing to preserve video evidence in the case of a 28-year-old woman who died at the Richmond City Justice Center in August 2014, the week the facility opened. U.S. District Judge M. Hannah Lauck sided with Paige Jenkins, the mother of Erin Jenkins, in a ruling issued Saturday imposing sanctions on Woody, who oversees the city jail. “Without the video, (Paige Jenkins) loses the best and most objective evidence of whatever happened on Aug. 1, 2014,” Lauck wrote.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
A couple of Shenandoah County residents gave the Board of Supervisors an earful this week in response to members’ recent impasses. Woodstock resident Robert Clark offered to help the board resolve its differences by going to Circuit Court Judge Dennis Hupp and to pursue binding arbitration. Clark, a frequent attendee and at the board’s meetings, suggested that Hupp could serve as the arbitrator. Clark asked for the board’s take. “What do you all think since you can’t agree amongst yourselves?” Clark asked. Chairman Conrad Helsley pointed out that the public comment portion of the meetings do not serve as question-and-answer periods. Helsley said he and other members could talk to him after the meeting.
Northern Virginia Daily
Del. Kathy Byron presented a substitute to her Broadband Deployment Act, with heightened transparency requirements and price stipulations for municipal broadband providers to the House Commerce and Labor committee Thursday. The committee will vote on it next week. Byron's revision changed much of the original substance of her bill, which was widely criticized by localities and municipal broadband providers across Virginia. The substitute took out Internet speed standards, the difference between served and unserved populations and provisions that could keep existing municipal broadband providers from expanding their services. The new language focuses on the transparency of taxpayer-funded broadband authorities.
Roanoke Times
National Stories
Back in 2015, the accountant for the Pension Review Board in Texas resigned. That left the board with a big hole. Succession planning had been weak and “the Agency had neither the staff nor the policies and procedures necessary to enable it to continue processing its payroll and non-payroll expenditures without assistance,” concluded the State Auditor’s office. A month after the accountant left, desperate to find someone, the board turned to a contractor. Not just any contractor, but the same person who had just left the job.This violated state statutes that forbid government employees from immediately contracting with the government after exiting it. What’s more, the board also paid out an advance of $16,400 before the contract was even signed -- an equally improper approach.
Governing
Editorials/Columns
In the give-and-take that comes with homeownership, both parties have — or at least, should have — a strong incentive to make sure the transaction works out and does not end in default and foreclosure. This mutual trust is vital to any real estate transaction. Anyone who has ever purchased a home knows the paperwork involved. Stacks of contracts, each with its own series of "sign heres" and "initial theres." One of the clauses in one of the paragraphs in one of the sections of one of those forms is a passage that requires the bank that holds the mortgage to place a public notice in the local newspaper before it evicts you for falling behind on your payments. This is an important safeguard for homeowners. State Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. "Tommy" Norment, R-James City, is trying to take it away.
Daily Press
While all eyes were focused on failed House efforts to eliminate the Office of Congressional Ethics — the only independent watchdog with jurisdiction over House members — Republican congressmen led by Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) quietly succeeded on another dubious ethical front: They adopted a rule designating records created, generated or received by a member’s congressional office “exclusively the personal property” of that member and granting members “control over such records.” Making congressional records the personal property of members seems tailor-made for the next lawmaker who, like former congressman Aaron Schock (R-Ill.), hopes to evade criminal responsibility by barring access to material allegedly showing how he misspent public funds.
Anne Weismann and Patrice McDermott, Washington Post
News & Advance
The secrecy of the Peninsula Airport Commission's discussion of its multimillion-dollar support of People Express and its decision to guarantee a loan to the startup airline, a deal that cost it $4.5 million, reflect a lack of openness and raise serious questions about how the group deals with public funds, political scientists and open-government advocates say. The commission guaranteed a line of credit from TowneBank to the startup airline, which had already been sued by American Express because it owed $50,546 on two credit cards. To support air service to New York and Boston, the commission also spent some $425,000 in advertising; the airline also was promised $700,000 in incentives from local governments. People Express also borrowed $985,000 from W.M. Jordan Co. but in the end, the airline flew for less than three months. Commission members apparently discussed the loan guarantee behind closed doors before granting then-Chairwoman LaDonna Finch the power "to do and commit any act ... the Chair deems necessary" to provide for air service and general business at Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport.
Daily Press
Richmond Sheriff C.T. Woody Jr. faces monetary sanctions and other penalties after failing to preserve video evidence in the case of a 28-year-old woman who died at the Richmond City Justice Center in August 2014, the week the facility opened. U.S. District Judge M. Hannah Lauck sided with Paige Jenkins, the mother of Erin Jenkins, in a ruling issued Saturday imposing sanctions on Woody, who oversees the city jail. “Without the video, (Paige Jenkins) loses the best and most objective evidence of whatever happened on Aug. 1, 2014,” Lauck wrote.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
A couple of Shenandoah County residents gave the Board of Supervisors an earful this week in response to members’ recent impasses. Woodstock resident Robert Clark offered to help the board resolve its differences by going to Circuit Court Judge Dennis Hupp and to pursue binding arbitration. Clark, a frequent attendee and at the board’s meetings, suggested that Hupp could serve as the arbitrator. Clark asked for the board’s take. “What do you all think since you can’t agree amongst yourselves?” Clark asked. Chairman Conrad Helsley pointed out that the public comment portion of the meetings do not serve as question-and-answer periods. Helsley said he and other members could talk to him after the meeting.
Northern Virginia Daily
Del. Kathy Byron presented a substitute to her Broadband Deployment Act, with heightened transparency requirements and price stipulations for municipal broadband providers to the House Commerce and Labor committee Thursday. The committee will vote on it next week. Byron's revision changed much of the original substance of her bill, which was widely criticized by localities and municipal broadband providers across Virginia. The substitute took out Internet speed standards, the difference between served and unserved populations and provisions that could keep existing municipal broadband providers from expanding their services. The new language focuses on the transparency of taxpayer-funded broadband authorities.
Roanoke Times
National Stories
Back in 2015, the accountant for the Pension Review Board in Texas resigned. That left the board with a big hole. Succession planning had been weak and “the Agency had neither the staff nor the policies and procedures necessary to enable it to continue processing its payroll and non-payroll expenditures without assistance,” concluded the State Auditor’s office. A month after the accountant left, desperate to find someone, the board turned to a contractor. Not just any contractor, but the same person who had just left the job.This violated state statutes that forbid government employees from immediately contracting with the government after exiting it. What’s more, the board also paid out an advance of $16,400 before the contract was even signed -- an equally improper approach.
Governing
Editorials/Columns
In the give-and-take that comes with homeownership, both parties have — or at least, should have — a strong incentive to make sure the transaction works out and does not end in default and foreclosure. This mutual trust is vital to any real estate transaction. Anyone who has ever purchased a home knows the paperwork involved. Stacks of contracts, each with its own series of "sign heres" and "initial theres." One of the clauses in one of the paragraphs in one of the sections of one of those forms is a passage that requires the bank that holds the mortgage to place a public notice in the local newspaper before it evicts you for falling behind on your payments. This is an important safeguard for homeowners. State Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. "Tommy" Norment, R-James City, is trying to take it away.
Daily Press
While all eyes were focused on failed House efforts to eliminate the Office of Congressional Ethics — the only independent watchdog with jurisdiction over House members — Republican congressmen led by Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) quietly succeeded on another dubious ethical front: They adopted a rule designating records created, generated or received by a member’s congressional office “exclusively the personal property” of that member and granting members “control over such records.” Making congressional records the personal property of members seems tailor-made for the next lawmaker who, like former congressman Aaron Schock (R-Ill.), hopes to evade criminal responsibility by barring access to material allegedly showing how he misspent public funds.
Anne Weismann and Patrice McDermott, Washington Post
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