Transparency News, 3/7/2022
Monday
March 7, 2022
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state & local news stories
I did a lot of tweeting this weekend about HB 734 and its attempt to roll back the work we did last year to make closed criminal investigative files more accessible to the public. In these tweets, I talk about the language used in the bill, the demonization of the media and what is actually meant by a "criminal investigative file."
Opengovva on Twitter
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Virginia's Supreme Court justices heard arguments Friday on their own decision to seal records filed by the former parole board chairwoman at the center of a scandal, which an attorney for the Richmond Times-Dispatch argued left the public without the ability to know if the secrecy was warranted. Former Virginia Parole Board Chairwoman Adrianne Bennett, who was found to have violated rules in the process for releasing some people from prison in 2020, filed records at the Supreme Court of Virginia last year related to a state investigation of her by the Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission. The Supreme Court put the records under seal, and sealed the order that explained its reasoning for closing off the records to the public. The Times-Dispatch filed a petition at the Supreme Court in July asking the court to unseal the sealing order. Friday's oral argument on the newspaper's petition came eight months later.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Prince William County leaders aren’t talking about two sites in the county that have been identified as potential locations for the Washington Commanders’ new stadium and practice facility. Documents reviewed and first reported by WUSA9 last week and later confirmed by the Washington Post show that the team is considering vacant land off Telegraph and Summit School roads in Woodbridge near Interstate 95 and within the Potomac Shores development east of Dumfries. According to a Prince William official, the county is under a non-disclosure agreement and cannot publicly discuss specific locations for a stadium. The agreement would indicate why some members of the Board of County Supervisors provided vague responses to InsideNoVa about the potential stadium.
InsideNoVa
One of three people named Thursday to fill vacant seats on the Pound Town Council has declined the appointment, forcing a pause in the Wise County town’s attempt to reestablish a working council and save its charter. In a letter dated Friday, George Dean, a former Pound mayor and town manager, told the judges of the 30th Judicial Circuit that he was “surprised” by his appointment, as he thought he had made clear to colleagues and the court that he was not interested in serving. He was mayor for eight years and town manager for almost six of those, he told the judges: “So I was well aware of all the issues Pound faced and I and Council had the Town on a positive road to recovery; however, I am extremely disappointed in the Town’s direction since 1 July 2020.” In December 2020, Dean was one of 44 people to sign an unsuccessful petition to recall Stacey Carson, who had succeeded him as mayor earlier that year. He had not sought reelection.
Cardinal News
Ally White is more familiar with the stories of the people buried in Round Hill Cemetery than most people. The Marion Senior High School senior has been keying all the information about the Marion cemetery’s graves into new software that will allow citizens and town officials to quickly find plots and learn more about the lives they represent.
Bristol Herald Courier
stories of national interest
For the past several years, the FBI has been trying to collect information from police departments around the country on their use of force, but it has yet to publish any reports or statistics based on that data because of lackluster participation from law enforcement. Now, a civil rights group says the FBI and Justice Department are stonewalling its attempts to get the underlying reports submitted to the program. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights has been trying to obtain raw reports from law enforcement agencies submitted to the FBI's National Use-of-Force Data Collection program. However, the FBI has rejected its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and the Justice Department has denied the Leadership Conference's appeal. The FBI launched the program in 2019 to fill one of the biggest gaps in our understanding of criminal justice in America: how often and where police use force.
Reason Magazine
Thirteen states have signed on to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking Biden administration records on any FBI surveillance of parents protesting school boards. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, a former member of Congress, has taken the lead in the lawsuit against President Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, citing a failure of U.S. officials to honor FOIA requests. The Indiana attorney general previously demanded all communications and records relating to the FBI’s decision to investigate violent threats against local education officials. Plaintiffs in the case are Indiana, Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Utah.
New York Post
editorials & columns
"That the legislation is this close to reaching the governor’s desk is malpractice by lawmakers."
The General Assembly could make an egregious error this week if it acts on a public records bill out of fear and due to misinformation rather than relying on fact and defending the public’s best interest. When lawmakers voted last year to require the release of inactive criminal investigation files, it was a landmark moment for transparency in Virginia. Those records shine a needed light on criminality and law enforcement operations, information which benefits the public and should be available for review. As soon as Monday, the Senate will consider House Bill 734, which would return discretion to law enforcement as to whether those records ever see the light of day. The bill has already passed the House and needs only approval from the upper chamber. That the legislation is this close to reaching the governor’s desk is malpractice by lawmakers. Reporting by Patrick Wilson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch suggests some supporters of the legislation, sponsored by Del. Rob Bell, believe it is necessary to prevent the release of sensitive crime photos — something already prohibited by law.
The Virginian-Pilot
A disconnect exists between the public’s right to know what their civil servants and elected representatives are up to and what those officials want to reveal. Always has. Always will. That’s why Virginia has a Freedom of Information Act. Three recent attempts to keep secrets from the public now make their way through the state’s executive, judicial and legislative branches.We begin with the absurd. Last week, a lawyer for the Richmond Times Dispatch went to court trying to understand how judges could seal the reasons for their decision to seal records in a high-profile case. This brings us to the second case of suspicious record sealing and one on which we opined in the past. The issue concerns a law sponsored by Republican Del. Rob Bell of Albemarle. Bell wants to overturn a law passed in 2021 that gives the public limited access to records of closed criminal cases. These are files that police and prosecutors once kept sealed. And then there is Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s refusal to release emails sent to a tip line in the governor’s office. Youngkin’s latest gambit is to refuse to reveal the names of groups who filed freedom of information requests to get information from his tip line.
The Daily Progress
Perhaps the best adjectives we can apply to two recent Montgomery County School Board meetings are bumpy, uneasy, painful and awkward. Maybe “outrageous” is a worthy term, too. The dustup was between school board Chair Sue Kass and Alecia Vaught, a Christiansburg resident who told me she has two children and two grandchildren in Montgomery County schools. This past Tuesday night, Kass apologized to the board and her constituents for her actions at the Feb. 15 meeting. She read a 429-word statement, with the explicit apology up front. “Why do you think I should apologize to her?” Vaught said. “I am the parent. I am the boss. … She works for me. If I want to go in there and sing the ABCs song, that is my right.” Notice the juvenile attitude in those remarks. They bring us to a larger point. Yes, there was an ugly dispute. The citizen started it, in a school board meeting, by displaying personal pictures of a public servant while attempting to make a ridiculously irrelevant point. The public servant ended it by stomping out of the room in anger. But only one party in this dustup acted like an adult and apologized.Kass came back to the next meeting and delivered a lesson in public civility. The other party, meanwhile, still hasn’t learned it.
Dan Casey, The Roanoke Times
