Transparency News, 12/29/21
Wednesday
March 2, 2022
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state & local news stories
A state Senate committee is wrestling with a bill that would essentially undo a change in the law made last year and broadly stop the public from getting access to police investigative files in closed cases. Misinformation about the current law has muddled the debate. Supporters of the proposed legislation, filed by Del. Rob Bell, R-Albemarle, say the priority should be protecting victims and avoiding public and media access to criminal records that could re-traumatize the survivors of people who were killed. Open government advocates who oppose the bill say it doesn’t strike the right balance between family privacy and allowing public access to government records, and say the Senate committee should avoid passing the bill until more time can be spent on how to fix any real problems that exist. The committee is scheduled to address the bill again Wednesday. Despite the speculation that sensitive records could be released, no evidence emerged in General Assembly hearings that any sensitive photos or records related to a murder or violent crime actually have been released since the new law took effect July 1.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
If you’ve ever bought a house, you’ve probably paid someone to help you do a title search. That typically requires sifting decades of title transfers, liens and other court records about the property—something that can take hours, even for a trained expert. What if it only took a few minutes, though, and you could pull up all of that information with a single click? That’s the goal of a Southwest Virginia project that’s using blockchain technology to enable “faster, better, cheaper access” to its land records, according to the clerk spearheading the project. The goal, said Wise County Circuit Court Clerk Jack Kennedy, is trifold: a database of “smart land records” in Wise and the City of Norton that can pull up 40 years’ worth of transaction history in seconds; roughly 20 paid internships that train Southwest Virginia college students to use blockchain software and title abstracts; and finally, software that harnesses machine learning and artificial intelligence to auto-generate property abstracts.
Cardinal News
Montgomery County School Board Chairwoman Sue Kass apologized Tuesday night for an incident two weeks ago, when she abruptly left a meeting following an exchange with a parent. Kass, who was elected chairwoman in January and is just starting the third year in her term, read a statement at the start of Tuesday’s board meeting. She directed her apology to fellow board members and constituents. Kass’ comments came exactly two weeks after she abruptly left a meeting following an exchange with speaker and local parent Alecia Vaught, who during her comments singled out the chairwoman over the issue of masking. The two began trading words — even prompting Kass at one point to call on a deputy to escort Vaught out of the room — after the speaker showed social media photos of the chairwoman without a mask while in a crowd. Kass has been a proponent of mask requirements in the schools during the pandemic. Vaught returned Tuesday and once again called out Kass during her comments. Board member Penny Franklin called for Vaught to be removed. Kass, however, told the board to let Vaught stay and speak.
The Roanoke Times
Brendan Wolfe, a former editor at Virginia Humanities’ Encyclopedia Virginia, started his own genealogy research service in 2021. After realizing that some of his potential clients faced financial barriers to accessing his services, Wolfe introduced a cost-free arm of his enterprise. Every two months, he will select one applicant to receive 20 hours of research and writing, valued at $1,000. The clients will receive a detailed report that includes family relationships, historical context, sources, and images. “When your service is connecting people to their own history, I feel like that’s really important,” Wolfe says. “Thinking more broadly, I feel as if in Charlottesville, of all places in central Virginia, we really understand what’s at stake with our history.” Wolfe says he received over 100 applications within the first three days of the announcement, and that he hopes to recruit other genealogists to help out or find additional funding to support the initiative.
C-Ville Weekly
stories of national interest
"The emergency measure seeks to ensure government communications sent using apps such as WhatsApp — including those that have an auto-delete feature for messages — are subject to Freedom of Information Act laws and are preserved in the public record."
The D.C. Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a measure that aims to regulate government employees’ use of WhatsApp and similar messaging services that have options to automatically delete recordsof conversations, following reports about members of Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s (D) administration using the app for government business. The emergency measure, introduced by D.C. Council chairman Phil Mendelson (D), seeks to ensure government communications sent using apps such as WhatsApp — including those that have an auto-delete feature for messages — are subject to Freedom of Information Act laws and are preserved in the public record. In a letter to the council ahead of the vote, Bowser said she supported efforts to ensure government records are maintained but noted that the underlying law in question does not appear to apply to the council, which she said was hypocritical. She added that her administration has “had little time to research how to implement this emergency.
The Washington Post
A federal appeals court on Monday ruled that grand jury records stemming from the investigation of the leak of the Pentagon Papers more than 50 years ago must remain secret despite any historical significance they might have. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court Appeals in Boston ruled that a lower-court judge lacked the authority to order the release of the sealed records at the request of Jill Lepore, a Harvard University professor and writer for The New Yorker. Lepore had sought the unsealing of records from two federal grand juries in Boston prosecutors empanelled in 1971 while authorities investigated the leak of the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret government study of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, which shifted the public's understanding of the war.
Reuters
Alex Murdaugh's attorneys have filed a lawsuit in federal court asking a judge to block the release of Murdaugh's jailhouse phone calls to additional media outlets. Excerpts of Murdaugh's phone conversations were obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request for public records by the online news site FITSNews, and published February 24. WCIV-TV (ABC News 4) and affiliate WACH-TV (WACH FOX News) filed a joint FOIA request with Richland County for access to those recordings on the same day. The lawsuit filed Monday by Murdaugh's attorneys, Jim Griffin and Dick Harpootlian, seeks to block any further release of their client's call recordings if requested by the public.
WPDE
editorials & columns
"This lack of trust will eventually push people into action to reconfigure or abandon the institutions that no longer serve them."
The specific complaints against the San Francisco Board of Education sound more like those coming from a rural-conservative-meets-new-development-progressive suburb like Loudoun County, Va., than from the bluest part of California. But declining faith in local school boards is a bipartisan phenomenon, and it seems that even the most politically lopsided areas are not immune. Across the nation, voters in large numbers have lost trust in the ability of their school boards to effectively manage local education. According to a recent State Policy Network survey, just 24 percent of voters nationwide have a significant level of trust for their local school board. In Virginia, where the political power of dissatisfied parents was put on full display in last November’s governor’s race, just 14 percent trust their local school board. In California, trust is higher, at 30 percent, but not nearly high enough to prevent the ousting of all of the recall-eligible San Francisco school board members. This lack of trust will eventually push people into action to reconfigure or abandon the institutions that no longer serve them. Their story — frustrated parents becoming successful recall leaders — may seem extraordinary, but it tracks closely with underlying attitudes about change and the American system of government. SPN’s State Voices poll also found that three-quarters of voters believe that the most meaningful change happens at the local level, and more than 4 in 5 feel local participation is what keeps the American system of government alive. Specific to education, 88 percent agree that there needs to be more transparency in the system.
Erin Norman, Governing
