Transparency News, 4/19/21
April 19, 2021
state & local news stories
Transparency Virginia
Senior staff members in Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration questioned the power of Virginia’s watchdog agency to investigate the Virginia Parole Board during an ongoing investigation and reprimanded Inspector General Michael Westfall for how many investigations his office was conducting during a tense meeting last summer. A recording of the meeting obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch conflicts with the governor’s previous accountthat his team did not intimidate Westfall and his staff. The 71-minute recording of the Aug. 14 meeting also shows that Northam’s chief of staff asked Westfall if the Office of the State Inspector General planned to investigate Republican lawmakers for releasing to the press a copy of an OSIG report that concluded the parole board violated state law and policies in releasing Vincent Martin, who was sentenced in 1980 to life in prison for killing a Richmond police officer.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
In a statement, Northam spokeswoman Alena Yarmosky said the governor’s office is confident the recording backs up what it “has said all along.” “This has become an absolute circus,” Yarmosky said. “In recent months, confidential documents have been leaked for political purposes, individuals’ private information has been made public, and now a secret recording from almost a year ago is being released to the press and not the public.” Nothing in the recording backs up Republican claims that the governor’s office may have been involved in editing down a 13-page, draft versionof the Vincent Martin report into the six-page report that eventually became public. As Northam’s team questioned the conclusions in the shorter report during the meeting, the IG’s office at times raised information that didn’t make the final cut in order to defend its findings.
Virginia Mercury
When she’s doing anything, like driving around town or alone with her thoughts, Judy Smith thinks of the night she saw her husband die. And until last year, they always felt relieved to learn [her husband's killer] would spend at least another year behind bars. But on May 6, 2020, Judy’s son Shane Smith got a call from a staff employee of the parole board, he said. The board was about to let Inge out and the family would not be notified, the staffer told him in an urgent voice. The staffer “asked me not to say how we heard.” Shane Smith said he got the sense that this employee was not supposed to be calling the family. Yet state law requires the parole board to make efforts to contact victims’ families before parole is considered.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
A bill allowing the public access to limited criminal investigation records will go into effect in July, along with a handful of other bills related to government transparency. Del. Chris Hurst, D-Blacksburg, a former television reporter, introducedHouse Bill 2004. The bill requires files related to non-ongoing criminal investigations be released under Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act law. “I’d been a journalist for 10 years, and I frequently saw that access to police records was very difficult,” Hurst said. “In denying those records, accountability and transparency were lost.” Hurst said he hopes the bill will give the public reasonable access to criminal investigation files. “It’s good governance once a case is closed to let the public see it,” Hurst said.
InsideNoVa
The Town of Windsor on Friday reposted a police body cam video showing a prior traffic stop involving an Army lieutenant who is suing two of its police officers for a stop that happened a month later. The move comes one day after town officials briefly posted the video on its website, then quickly took it down once they realized some identifying information about the motorist, Lt. Caron Nazario, needed to be redacted from it.
Daily Press
stories from around the country
"With all the pain and suffering that this year has caused all of us, it’s hard to believe that the legislature is focused on withholding more information from the public."
Florida has over 1,100 public records exemptions, compared to 9 exemptions for the federal Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA. And new state public records exemptions are being added each session. "There is no question that the Legislature is enthusiastically attempting to block our right to know what our state and local governments are doing," said Pam a former top federal prosecutor and president of the nonprofit, nonpartisan First Amendment Foundation of Florida. "With all the pain and suffering that this year has caused all of us, it’s hard to believe that the legislature is focused on withholding more information from the public." Lawmakers this session filed 120 bills proposing exemptions aiming to block the public's access to open records, Marsh said, including one that would shield the home addresses of state lawmakers and their families.
Tallahassee Democrat
The Ninth Circuit awarded attorney fees to a Daily Beast journalist in a Freedom of Information Act case in which he won the release of government records related to the alleged surveillance of President Trump and his advisers during the 2016 election.
Courthouse News Service (includes link to opinion)
Boulder's Daily Camera newspaper is seeking a review of a district court ruling that found that University of Colorado regents could refuse to disclose the names and applications of finalists for the university president's job in 2019. Thursday's petition asks the state Supreme Court to determine who is considered a finalist for chief executive jobs not only at the university but at other state and local government entities under the Colorado Open Records Act. The act requires that a finalist's identity must be publicly disclosed at least 14 days before a job offer is made. It also allows public access to records submitted by finalists.
WFSB
