Transparency News 3/8/17
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
State and Local Stories
State and Local Stories
The Richmond City Auditor’s Office cited an officer in the Finance Department in a report released this week for conducting church-related business at work. It’s the second city employee in four months the auditor has found doing work for their respective churches on city time. The reports follow a high-profile investigation last year into former Mayor Dwight C. Jones after the auditor’s office found Jones’ director of public works was overseeing a construction project for the church where Jones serves as senior pastor.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Virginia’s lawmakers last year accepted fewer gifts from lobbyists compared with 2015, according to data from reports that were recently made public. From May to October, members of the Virginia General Assembly accepted a total of $16,638 in gifts. That was down about 57 percent from the $38,696 in the same time period in 2015, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, which provides nonpartisan information about Virginia politics.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
National Stories
WikiLeaks released thousands of documents that it said described sophisticated software tools used by the Central Intelligence Agency to break into smartphones, computers and even Internet-connected televisions. If the documents are authentic, as appeared likely at first review, the release would be the latest coup for the anti-secrecy organization and a serious blow to the C.I.A., which maintains its own hacking capabilities to be used for espionage.
New York Times
Vice President Mike Pence demanded that the Associated Press apologize for publishing his wife's personal email address; what he received was a letter expressing "regret." The email was published Friday by the AP as part of a story about her husband's use of private email accounts in the course of public business as Indiana's governor. Their personal addresses turned up in an information request first made by The Indianapolis Star. The AP included Karen Pence's email "in an effort to be transparent" and after it had sought but was denied comment from the vice president's office.
USA TODAY
Pennsylvania Senate Democratic leader Jay Costa said Monday that while his caucus remains frozen out of its email and computer network, it does not plan to pay ransom to restore it. "Our phones are operating, our offices are open, our members are conducting business as usual," he said in a conference call with reporters. A "ransomware" cyberattack Friday left state Senate Democrats unable to access emails, internal working documents and other files. The material that is inaccessible includes working documents including an analysis of the state budget currently under discussion in Harrisburg. Also frozen is information in the Democrats' constituent-tracking system, which handles feedback from their districts.
Governing
The National Park Service has released a series of aerial and ground shots that show the crowd sizes during the last three presidential inaugurations in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from various media outlets. The images show the crowd sizes of President Barack Obama's 2009 and 2013 inaugurations, as well as President Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Editorials/Columns
Jim Bourey has many of the qualities that anyone would want to see in a city manager. He is a smart man with boundless energy, tremendously ambitious and with a sharp, clear vision for the future. Since taking that job with the city of Newport News in July 2013, he has done many things that served our citizens well. But Mr. Bourey's demise seems to have come about as a result of a glaring fault for a public official — a propensity for doing work in the shadows that needs to be handled in the light of day, in plain view of the people he serves. It reflected an overconfidence in his own judgment that was not always fully merited. Mr. Bourey resigned as city manager Tuesday, his fate sealed by the substantial role he played in the Peninsula Airport Commission's decision to use our tax dollars to repay a $4.5 million loan it had recklessly guaranteed to a start-up airline that almost literally never got off the ground.
Daily Press
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Virginia’s lawmakers last year accepted fewer gifts from lobbyists compared with 2015, according to data from reports that were recently made public. From May to October, members of the Virginia General Assembly accepted a total of $16,638 in gifts. That was down about 57 percent from the $38,696 in the same time period in 2015, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, which provides nonpartisan information about Virginia politics.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
National Stories
WikiLeaks released thousands of documents that it said described sophisticated software tools used by the Central Intelligence Agency to break into smartphones, computers and even Internet-connected televisions. If the documents are authentic, as appeared likely at first review, the release would be the latest coup for the anti-secrecy organization and a serious blow to the C.I.A., which maintains its own hacking capabilities to be used for espionage.
New York Times
Vice President Mike Pence demanded that the Associated Press apologize for publishing his wife's personal email address; what he received was a letter expressing "regret." The email was published Friday by the AP as part of a story about her husband's use of private email accounts in the course of public business as Indiana's governor. Their personal addresses turned up in an information request first made by The Indianapolis Star. The AP included Karen Pence's email "in an effort to be transparent" and after it had sought but was denied comment from the vice president's office.
USA TODAY
Pennsylvania Senate Democratic leader Jay Costa said Monday that while his caucus remains frozen out of its email and computer network, it does not plan to pay ransom to restore it. "Our phones are operating, our offices are open, our members are conducting business as usual," he said in a conference call with reporters. A "ransomware" cyberattack Friday left state Senate Democrats unable to access emails, internal working documents and other files. The material that is inaccessible includes working documents including an analysis of the state budget currently under discussion in Harrisburg. Also frozen is information in the Democrats' constituent-tracking system, which handles feedback from their districts.
Governing
The National Park Service has released a series of aerial and ground shots that show the crowd sizes during the last three presidential inaugurations in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from various media outlets. The images show the crowd sizes of President Barack Obama's 2009 and 2013 inaugurations, as well as President Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Editorials/Columns
Jim Bourey has many of the qualities that anyone would want to see in a city manager. He is a smart man with boundless energy, tremendously ambitious and with a sharp, clear vision for the future. Since taking that job with the city of Newport News in July 2013, he has done many things that served our citizens well. But Mr. Bourey's demise seems to have come about as a result of a glaring fault for a public official — a propensity for doing work in the shadows that needs to be handled in the light of day, in plain view of the people he serves. It reflected an overconfidence in his own judgment that was not always fully merited. Mr. Bourey resigned as city manager Tuesday, his fate sealed by the substantial role he played in the Peninsula Airport Commission's decision to use our tax dollars to repay a $4.5 million loan it had recklessly guaranteed to a start-up airline that almost literally never got off the ground.
Daily Press
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