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Wednesday
January 31, 2018
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state & local news stories
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A bill to make the Virginia Supreme Court’s databases of court case information from across the state open to the public is moving through the General Assembly. It would make that database and one containing district court records available to the public. The change to an original version of this bill was initiated by a compromise with the Supreme Court’s Office of the Executive Secretary, the Virginia Press Association and the court clerks association, said Del. Mike Mullin, D-Newport News, who is sponsoring the bill along with Del. Greg Habeeb, R-Salem. The clerks association had opposed the Daily Press’ efforts over the past two and a half years to obtain a database of circuit court records from the OES through the Freedom of Information Act. If passed, HB 780 would require the OES to release aggregated case indexing information. That would allow the public to look at how the court system as a whole operates, Mullin said.
Daily Press
Del. Chris Hurst’s plan to address student privacy concerns this legislative session failed Tuesday. A Republican-led House panel scrapped Hurst’s legislation protecting student cellphone numbers and private email addresses from public directories in favor of an alternate proposal by Del. Tony Wilt, R-Rockingham. The bills by Wilt and Hurst, D-Blacksburg, stem from tactics used by a progressive political group to obtain the cellphone numbers of thousands of college students during the fall election cycle. The political organizations used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain campus directories from approximately half of Virginia’s public colleges and universities. Where Hurst’s legislation would have altered one sentence in the portion of Virginia’s code that addresses FOIA, Wilt’s proposal is far more detailed and addresses a separate code section pertaining to student records.
The Roanoke Times
Federal officials have set a new date for a meeting on potentially reopening the Virginia coastline to oil and gas drilling, but it’s still planned far from shore. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management postponed a Jan. 17 meeting near Richmond because of a snowstorm. The meeting is now set for Feb. 21. And in spite of criticism from Virginia elected officials, the bureau has stuck with its planned site, the Four Points by Sheraton Richmond Airport, about a two-hour drive from the Virginia Beach Oceanfront. Gov. Ralph Northam and U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner and others also have called on federal officials to hold meetings on the drilling plan in the Virginia Beach area and on the Eastern Shore, as the bureau did during the last go-round two years ago under President Barack Obama.
The Virginian-Pilot
The Albemarle County School Board on Tuesday received no public comments at a hearing on Superintendent Pam Moran’s $188.1 million funding request for 2018-2019. However, the school division recorded more than 2,200 responses to its annual budget survey and has received hundreds of emails from teachers advocating for higher pay. “I don’t think people are not paying attention [to the budget],” said School Board Chairwoman Kate Acuff.
Cville Tomorrow
School board newcomer Marshall Keene (Stevensburg District) on Monday night said he’d like the board to consider adding a period of public invocation or prayer before its regular meetings. The Culpeper County School Board currently engages in a moment of silence before reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. During the board’s work session, Keene said he’d heard from constituents in his district who asked him if the board could include prayers. Both the Culpeper Town Council and Culpeper County Board of Supervisors invite area faith leaders to provide an invocation before opening their monthly meetings. After hearing from the school division’s attorney, Rodney Young, in a closed session meeting Monday evening, the board voted 5-2 to table the issue in order to receive a written memo from Young based on his research and recommendations.
Culpeper Star-Exponent
The College of William and Mary’s Board of Visitors announced at a meeting Monday that they will hold interviews for the college’s next president off campus. Last April, a committee to find William and Mary’s next president was put together after Taylor Revely announced he would retire June 30. When asked who or where the candidates were being interviewed Sue Gerdelman, secretary of the Board of Visitors, said "everything is being held in confidence."
The Virginia Gazette
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national stories of interest
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A report has found that there are now 538 exemptions to Tennessee's public records law, about six times as many as there were three decades ago. According to the state comptroller's office, the Tennessee Public Records Act only had two statutory exceptions when it was enacted in 1957. By 1988, a legislative committee reported there were 89 exceptions. In its report released Tuesday, the comptroller's Office of Open Records Counsel found that number has grown to include hundreds of exceptions in Tennessee Code.
U.S. News & World Report
Search for the nexus of a political debate over whether Florida should restore felons’ voting rights or purge its rolls and you’ll find a white, 71-year-old radiologist named Douglas Hornsby. A sitting commissioner in the sleepy Miami-Dade coastal town of North Bay Village, Hornsby was removed from office Monday after government officials determined he was never eligible to take his post. Turns out, the septuagenarian omitted an unresolved, 25-year-old felony cocaine conviction in Tennessee from his voting registration forms after he moved to Florida in the ’90s, making him an illegal voter and an illegitimate elected official.
The Miami Herald
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 "The Tennessee Public Records Act only had two statutory exceptions when it was enacted in 1957."
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