Transparency News, 3/12/20

Wednesday
March 11, 2020

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There was no issue of Access News yesterday, March 11.

Thank you to the Northern District of the Commissioners of Revenue Association of Virginia for hosting me yesterday in Spotsylvania for a presentation on FOIA and the Tax Code (and a tasty lunch!).

The Virginia House of Delegates and Senate convene today at 10 a.m. to debate and adopt the budget. You can watch the sessions by following the links at the "House Video" and "Senate Video" links on the Legislative Information System page.
And these are the budget bills:
House Bill 29 amends the existing two-year budget, which expires at the end of June 2021
House Bill 30 enacts a new two-year budget, starting at the end of June 2021
 - There are a few outstanding bills on other topics on the calendars, too.

The former executive director of the Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport was found guilty Tuesday of 23 of the 24 felony charges against him. The former airport executive was found guilty of 12 counts of misusing public money at an organization receiving federal grants for the debt payments on the loan. He was found guilty of six counts of money laundering in relation to the shifting of money and mislabeling the accounts that were used to collateralize and pay the debt. Spirito was found guilty of knowingly giving false information about the source of the funds when the Federal Aviation Administration began asking him about it in early 2017. He was also convicted of separately embezzling more than $5,000 for using an airport credit card to pay for a long-term warranty to his own car and repairs to his car and an employee’s vehicle after accidents. Spirito was additionally found guilty of three counts of perjury — and acquitted on one perjury count — for statements during a deposition to an airport lawyer in early 2019 during the defamation lawsuit that he filed after his ouster.
Daily Press
A comprehensive recap of situation that led to the charges, which started with a FOIA request by a the owner of an airport restaurant whose lease was terminated.
Daily Press

The Chesterfield County PTA has historically shied away from engaging in local politics or participating in organized advocacy efforts that might lead to blowback from neighbors. Under Ben Pearson-Nelson’s leadership, that seems to be changing. “We’re trying something different,” he said following the rally. “We’re actually advocating for our kids and for our teachers and our schools.” Not everyone is a fan of his methods, however. Leslie Haley, chairwoman of the Chesterfield Board of Supervisors, admonished Pearson-Nelson in a recent email, claiming his “misguided attempts of advocacy are only furthering community discord” over school funding and teacher compensation. “Having served in your position for 4 years, I understand that role and am candidly disappointed that you are not adhering to the intended purpose of the council,” Haley wrote in the Feb. 26 email, a copy of which was obtained by the Observer. “As such, you are basically ignoring the voices of the folks who elected you based upon the outlined goals and purposes of the organization.” Without mentioning Chesterfield Education Association President Sonia Smith or Pearson-Nelson by name, Haley admitted in an interview last month that she and her colleagues on the Board of Supervisors have been frustrated “because our citizens have been misled in a lot of ways by some of the loud voices.”
Chesterfield Observer

For the last month, someone’s been running a social media campaign built to look like grassroots, community opposition to slot machines in Northern Virginia. In almost $50,000 worth of Facebook ads, a group called Not in Nova has warned that “out-of-state Big Gambling special interests and their lobbyists” were sneaking a bill through the General Assembly that would make Northern Virginia more crowded, expensive and traffic-clogged.  But none of the group’s public materials connect back to any identifiable citizen activists working against a proposal to allow Colonial Downs to operate hundreds of slots-like historical horse racing machines in Dumfries. The secretive nature of the advocacy campaign and the fingerprints of the PR firms that seem to be carrying it out have fueled questions on social media and around the Capitol about who’s actually behind it. The public-facing portions of the Not in Nova website don’t include the names of anyone involved in the effort. But code accessible on the site – which operates on a WordPress publishing platform – lists the names of three authorized users. All three names match the names of employees of the communications firm Precision Strategies.
Virginia Mercury
 

editorials & columns

"Why bother to editorialize on the subject, knowing full well that come next January another legislative session will commence that will resemble . . . the last January and the January before that and the January before that?"

Why bother to editorialize on the subject, knowing full well that come next January another legislative session will commence that will resemble, in majesty, content and chaos, the last January and the January before that and the January before that? Simple. Just mark this down as a normative argument, about what-ought-to-be, not what is. There ought to be a rational process, moderately accessible to average Virginians who wish to speak to an issue or merely be informed about legislative intentions. We ought to give citizens a fighting chance, in other words. Do not force them to join a special interest group or hire an expensive lobbyist to be heard. Which is not to devalue the importance of lobbyists to Virginia lawmaking. No, not at all. To the contrary, the role of industry/interest representation before the General Assembly has been crucial to the maintenance of continuity in Virginia, especially during a period of quick turnover in legislative membership. That said, average citizens, on their lonesome, should be able to access the business of lawmaking in Virginia and discover a reasonably orderly, reasonably coherent, reasonably comprehensible process.
Daily Press