Transparency News 3/24/17
Friday, March 24, 2017
State and Local Stories
State and Local Stories
Fredericksburg Mayor Mary Katherine Greenlaw raised a selfie stick and with a push of a button officially launched the city government into the social media world this week. “Say hi to the world, Fredericksburg,” she said Tuesday as she snapped a photo of herself, City Manager Tim Baroody and Councilmen Billy Withers and Tim Duffy. The gesture kicked off the city government’s @FxbgGov ID for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. For good measure, Greenlaw also took a selfie of the two dozen or so city staff and others assembled at Hurkamp Park for the short afternoon event. It included a ribbon-cutting in front of the symbols for the three social media presences, and there were oversized picture frames for those who wanted to take their own selfies and post them.
Free Lance-Star
Virginia Department of Transportation auditors said they still don’t have access to bank records, emails and other documents they need to investigate the alleged misuse of state funds by the Newport News airport. On March 8, the airport commission told TowneBank to cooperate with the audit, but it’s been 15 days and there’s still no information, said Brad Gales, VDOT director of assurance and compliance. The original request was made Feb. 1. TowneBank officials said they just received the request last Thursday, and their legal team is working on getting the documents and will submit them to auditors as soon as possible.
Virginian-Pilot
National Stories
A police watchdog agency investigator who leaked the disciplinary record of a white police officer involved in the chokehold death of unarmed black man Eric Garner resigned on Thursday. The investigator, who was not publicly identified, worked for the Civilian Complaint Review Board for less than a year and had no role in the investigation of any of the disciplinary cases against Officer Daniel Pantaleo that were leaked to the website Thinkprogress.org, the board said. "After a swift and thorough internal investigation, the Civilian Complaint Review Board identified the employee who was the source of the leak," board secretary Jerika Richardson said. "As of today, that individual no longer works at CCRB."
McClatchy
For weeks, lawyers for Arkansas' two university systems and the state Highway and Transportation Department have told legislators that they face an unfair advantage in court because of the state's public records law. The remedy, the lawyers have testified, is Senate Bill 373. The bill would exempt attorney-client communications and attorney work product in "pending and threatened" lawsuits from disclosure under the state's Freedom of Information Act. Yet, in response to requests from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, not UA nor Arkansas State University systems nor the highway agency could cite a single, documented case in the past two years in which their attorneys were forced under the Freedom of Information Act to hand over legal strategies and other key documents to opposing counsel. An Highway Department attorney who has testified in favor of SB373 said she could provide no records because such requests are usually made orally.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Nine months after the Maine Department of Labor outsourced its federally mandated job-matching service to an out-of-state vendor, that vendor has suffered a data breach that resulted in the theft of an unknown number of Mainers' sensitive personal information. America's JobLink of Topeka, Kansas, has become the victim of a hacking incident from an outside source in which the names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers of an unspecified number of job-seekers in up to 10 states were accessed, according to a news release. The states include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, Vermont and Maine. The data breach was discovered Tuesday, and America's JobLink technicians have since patched the security hole that allowed the hackers entry, the release said. New accounts created on or after March 16 were not affected, according to the state Department of Labor.
Governing
Government transparency can take many forms, and not all of them have bipartisan support. But at a March 23 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing, one piece of legislation seemed to resonate on both sides of the aisle: the Open, Public, Electronic and Necessary (OPEN) Government Act. The open government bill, which also received bipartisan support last Congress, would codify President Barack Obama's 2013 executive order to require federal agencies to publish their information to Data.gov in a non-proprietary, machine-readable format. It would also standardize open data definitions, map federal data sets and ensure that CIOs have the authority to improve dataset quality. The transparency provided by the bill’s implementation would benefit more than just private citizens and companies, Data Coalition Executive Director Hudson Hollister said. It would also reduce agency costs for big data projects by eliminating duplicative processes. He suggested the bill would also complement and modernize the often-frustrating Freedom of Information Act request and response process. FOIA, “while still an essential avenue for transparency, is no longer the most efficient one,” he said. “Information technologies now make it possible for the government to operate in the open, online, without waiting to receive a FOIA request.”
Federal Computer Week
Editorials/Columns
Art Silber’s handing of the campaign to have Prince William County taxpayers subsidize and assume debt for the proposed Potomac Nationals stadium is a thing of beauty. It was democracy in action. Chairman Corey Stewart and the Prince William Board of County Supervisors looked out upon a board room in which those supporting the stadium far outnumbered those opposed. Potomac Nationals shirts and caps filled the room. The majority who attended that board meeting got what they wanted. It was a very democratic decision. Ironically, Prince William’s government is a republic. Those we elect should be representing all of us, not just the latest special interest group with its hand out.
Al Alborn, Inside NOVA
Free Lance-Star
Virginia Department of Transportation auditors said they still don’t have access to bank records, emails and other documents they need to investigate the alleged misuse of state funds by the Newport News airport. On March 8, the airport commission told TowneBank to cooperate with the audit, but it’s been 15 days and there’s still no information, said Brad Gales, VDOT director of assurance and compliance. The original request was made Feb. 1. TowneBank officials said they just received the request last Thursday, and their legal team is working on getting the documents and will submit them to auditors as soon as possible.
Virginian-Pilot
National Stories
A police watchdog agency investigator who leaked the disciplinary record of a white police officer involved in the chokehold death of unarmed black man Eric Garner resigned on Thursday. The investigator, who was not publicly identified, worked for the Civilian Complaint Review Board for less than a year and had no role in the investigation of any of the disciplinary cases against Officer Daniel Pantaleo that were leaked to the website Thinkprogress.org, the board said. "After a swift and thorough internal investigation, the Civilian Complaint Review Board identified the employee who was the source of the leak," board secretary Jerika Richardson said. "As of today, that individual no longer works at CCRB."
McClatchy
For weeks, lawyers for Arkansas' two university systems and the state Highway and Transportation Department have told legislators that they face an unfair advantage in court because of the state's public records law. The remedy, the lawyers have testified, is Senate Bill 373. The bill would exempt attorney-client communications and attorney work product in "pending and threatened" lawsuits from disclosure under the state's Freedom of Information Act. Yet, in response to requests from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, not UA nor Arkansas State University systems nor the highway agency could cite a single, documented case in the past two years in which their attorneys were forced under the Freedom of Information Act to hand over legal strategies and other key documents to opposing counsel. An Highway Department attorney who has testified in favor of SB373 said she could provide no records because such requests are usually made orally.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Nine months after the Maine Department of Labor outsourced its federally mandated job-matching service to an out-of-state vendor, that vendor has suffered a data breach that resulted in the theft of an unknown number of Mainers' sensitive personal information. America's JobLink of Topeka, Kansas, has become the victim of a hacking incident from an outside source in which the names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers of an unspecified number of job-seekers in up to 10 states were accessed, according to a news release. The states include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, Vermont and Maine. The data breach was discovered Tuesday, and America's JobLink technicians have since patched the security hole that allowed the hackers entry, the release said. New accounts created on or after March 16 were not affected, according to the state Department of Labor.
Governing
Government transparency can take many forms, and not all of them have bipartisan support. But at a March 23 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing, one piece of legislation seemed to resonate on both sides of the aisle: the Open, Public, Electronic and Necessary (OPEN) Government Act. The open government bill, which also received bipartisan support last Congress, would codify President Barack Obama's 2013 executive order to require federal agencies to publish their information to Data.gov in a non-proprietary, machine-readable format. It would also standardize open data definitions, map federal data sets and ensure that CIOs have the authority to improve dataset quality. The transparency provided by the bill’s implementation would benefit more than just private citizens and companies, Data Coalition Executive Director Hudson Hollister said. It would also reduce agency costs for big data projects by eliminating duplicative processes. He suggested the bill would also complement and modernize the often-frustrating Freedom of Information Act request and response process. FOIA, “while still an essential avenue for transparency, is no longer the most efficient one,” he said. “Information technologies now make it possible for the government to operate in the open, online, without waiting to receive a FOIA request.”
Federal Computer Week
Editorials/Columns
Art Silber’s handing of the campaign to have Prince William County taxpayers subsidize and assume debt for the proposed Potomac Nationals stadium is a thing of beauty. It was democracy in action. Chairman Corey Stewart and the Prince William Board of County Supervisors looked out upon a board room in which those supporting the stadium far outnumbered those opposed. Potomac Nationals shirts and caps filled the room. The majority who attended that board meeting got what they wanted. It was a very democratic decision. Ironically, Prince William’s government is a republic. Those we elect should be representing all of us, not just the latest special interest group with its hand out.
Al Alborn, Inside NOVA
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