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Eleven citizen ideas for legisltation were sent to the Department of Legislative Services to be drafted into bills, 7 started out in the House of Delegates, and 2 became laws.
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Attorney Andrew T. Bodoh is offering a free webinar for Virginia attorneys seeking 3 hours of continuing legal education (CLE) credits for 2019. The webinar is called "Need to Know: Making and Enforcing Virginia FOIA Requests." October 15, 2019, from 1 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. Learn more here.
Twice a month, Staunton, Waynesboro and Augusta County hold city council or board of supervisors meetings. The meetings are open to the public, and anybody is welcome to speak during a public comment period. These meetings are where elected officials make decisions that affect residents, such as approving or denying rezoning requests, special-use permit applications, local tax levels and the annual budget. We decided to take a look at how each local governing body operates to keep you up to date on how to participate.
News Leader
Arlington government officials are seeking the authority to position armed, private-sector security guards at County Board meetings. The idea, posed as a request to the government’s landlord (a subsidiary of JBG Smith), would allow private security to supplement and/or augment current county police and sheriff’s deputies at board meetings. Mostly they are an unseen presence, kept out of public view, but they are on hand, government officials acknowledged. “The county uses armed security now – the amendment merely expands the choices that the county may make for the provision of that security,” government staffer Doug Raiden said in a memo to County Board members. Raiden’s memo acknowledged that funding for the “potential costs of enhanced security” at the Bozman Government Center had been included in the county government’s fiscal 2020 budget, adopted in the spring.
Arlington Sun Gazette
Norfolk Public Schools mistakenly paid the School Board chairwoman’s brother-in-law for volunteer work, one of its attorneys said. Chairwoman Noelle Gabriel’s brother-in-law, Nate Kinnison, has been an off-and-on volunteer with the district’s All-City Jazz program for several years, Deputy City Attorney Jack Cloud said in an email. Kinnison, a Virginia Beach music teacher and a saxophonist with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra who ran for the Norfolk School Board in 2018, had applied for a part-time position in the school system, Cloud said. No hiring decision had been made, Cloud said, in part because the state’s conflict-of-interest law requires certain certifications to be filed before a relative of a board member can be hired. However, Kinnison was paid $300 because NPS employees submitted a payroll worksheet for 12 hours of work that Kinnison performed as a volunteer, Cloud said. Cloud and Kinnison said separately that Kinnison contacted the school division as soon as he received the check and didn’t cash it.
The Virginian-Pilot
As the temperatures spiked earlier last week, 8News continued to hear from inmates, relatives and corrections officers about unbearable heat in Virginia prisons. 8News has now uncovered new information contradicting what state officials first told us. Many of the state’s prisons lack air conditioning. Earlier this summer, 8News was told the Department Of Corrections had taken steps to purchase extra fans, ice machines and portable AC units, to keep inmates and workers safe. Yet, 8News found that’s not all true. 8News filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all purchases orders, invoices and receipts for the cooling equipment at the three prisons we got the most concerns about: Nottoway, Buckingham and Augusta Correctional Centers. While we can see industrial grade fans, water coolers, window air conditioners and ice machines were purchased at Nottoway and Buckingham prisons, 8News found nothing for Augusta. When 8News questioned the lack of documents, we were told they “did not have anything responsive to our request.” In addition, an internal memo shared with 8News shows the fans inmates are supposed to be able to purchase for their cells have been discontinued and are no longer available.
WRIC
Del. Sam Rasoul is bringing back his program for people interested in writing their own pieces of legislation to submit to the Virginia General Assembly. Rasoul, D-Roanoke, started his You Write the Bill program last year as a way to invite residents to participate in the legislative process and pursue ideas that are of interest to them. Last year, people came up with policy proposals on issues such as mental health, criminal justice reform, education, corruption in politics and the environment. After a few meetings throughout Roanoke, 11 ideas were sent to the Department of Legislative Services to be drafted into bills. Of those, seven started out in the House of Delegates to go through the process of passing the legislature. Two became laws.
The Roanoke Times
The Pinnacle has proven to be a boon for Bristol, Tennessee’s coffers with tax revenues netting the city nearly $9 million over the past five years. An impact summary on the development acquired from the city by the Bristol Herald Courier through a Freedom of Information Act request shows property tax, shares of state sales tax and local option sales tax revenues generated by businesses in The Pinnacle and Border Region Retail Tourism Development District from fiscal years 2014-2019 totaled $8.7 million, exceeding the $5.7 million the city made in payments for debt it accrued to help make The Pinnacle happen. However, the true revenue amount generated for the city by the retail complex off Interstate 81’s Exit 74 is higher because the city did not provide data on revenue from the business tax, liquor-by-the drink tax and hotel-motel tax. Tara Musick, the city’s director of finance, said the city could not provide that information because the revenue from those taxes isn’t tracked separately from what’s collected in the rest of the city.
Bristol Herald Courier
Lt. Gov Justin Fairfax has filed a $400 million defamation lawsuit against CBS for their reporting on sexual assault claims made against him. While defamation cases are common in the courtroom; winning one is not. Fairfax must prove CBS either knowingly reported false claims or intentionally did not investigate them, with specific intent to damage his reputation and political career. Public figures — politicians, high-ranking government officials and celebrities, for instance — are required to prove actual malice to recover damages from defamatory statements. “Actual malice is a mindset that you mean to do something maliciously; it’s willful,” said Carl Tobias, a constitutional law expert and law professor at the University of Richmond.
Virginia Mercury
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"I was informed they were my supervisors and my job was to represent the governor’s interest and I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone."
"The fact is an open process inspires confidence, both in the elected officials conducting it and the person ultimately selected through it."