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state & local news stories
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 "Roche requested that the commission members be notified before having to read it in the papers of developments that impact them."
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A completed review of a fatal officer-involved shooting from January might be released sometime next week, Danville Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael Newman reported Tuesday. The report should detail the prosecutor’s conclusion of whether a Danville officer was justified in the reported shooting death of Richard Towler early on the morning of Jan. 7. “I expect when I am done to release it to public,” Newman said in an email.
Register & Bee
With not enough members present to vote on anything, the Middletown Planning Commission meeting Monday night was discussion only. Planning Commission member Joan Roche began the meeting with a request. Roche said she had to read about the reduction in the number of members sitting on the commission in the newspapers, as well as the resignation of Shayla Wharton. At the last Middletown work session, the number of members from the Planning Commission was reduced from seven to five, leaving four voting members and the chair, who only votes to break a tie. Roche requested that the commission members be notified before having to read it in the papers of developments that impact them. Chairman Daryl Terrill apologized and said he would do better on getting information out more quickly to members.
Northern Virginia Daily
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stories of national interest
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Fort Bend (Texas) County commissioners have joined a list of local officials asking Texas to suspend its Open Meetings Act during times of crisis after they say it caused issues in communication during the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey last year. The Open Meetings Act requires public notice before a meeting of three or more elected officials. Fort Bend County commissioners will testify before the House Select Committee on Government Transparency and Operations with other city and county officials in Austin Tuesday in hopes of suspending the law during emergencies like Harvey.
KXAS
A federal judge in Manhattan dealt a blow Monday to attempts to shed light on the U.S. government’s anonymous press briefings. Granting partial summary judgment in a Freedom of Information Act case, U.S. District Judge Gregory Woods agreed with the U.S. State Department’s refusal to make public the names of officials who set up restricted briefings for journalists between 2012 and 2014 on topics including Boko Haram, Afghanistan, Syria and Ukraine. Because the briefings were designated as “on background,” the journalists were could not attribute any information obtained there to anyone but anonymous administration officials.
Courthouse News Service
IN HIS 20 YEARS as an Illinois statehouse reporter, the Associated Press’ John O’Connor has exposed corruption at nearly every level of Illinois government. His reporting on lies and government waste across five administrations have been one of few constants in a statehouse press corps that, like most others, is a shell of what it was a decade ago. There are fewer than 20 full- and part-time statehouse correspondents now, down from 42 in 2006. Lee Enterprises and the suburban Daily Herald in Arlington Heights both shuttered their statehouse operations in recent years. In December 2016, O’Connor became the AP’s lone statehouse reporter. O’Connor first used the state’s Freedom of Information laws in 1996 to report on spending excesses at the State Board of Education—a story that led to the superintendent’s resignation. Since then, he has used documents to expose a prison director who flew in a taxpayer-funded plane for personal use, “midnight” raises for transportation department employees from outgoing Governor Rod Blagojevich, and under-the-table funding cuts for domestic violence programs, among other stories. “The documents don’t lie,” he tells CJR.
Columbia Journalism Review
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