Transparency News, 3/9/2022
Wednesday
March 9, 2022
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state & local news stories
A controversial bill to largely undo a new criminal-justice transparency law in Virginia will be worked out behind closed doors in the General Assembly session’s last week. The Democratic-led state Senate voted 26-13 Tuesday to send the legislation to a conference committee, a small panel of legislators that will work out its details and present a final bill for votes later this week. The new law that’s now in jeopardy requires law enforcement agencies to disclose some closed investigative files under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. Officials routinely denied access to those records before the law was changed under Democratic control last year following a study by the FOIA Advisory Council. The legislation filed this year would restrict that newly granted access only to victims’ immediate families and lawyers doing post-conviction work, a sharp reversal proponents say would prevent grisly details or sensitive information about a victim from becoming entertainment fodder. However, open-government advocates say it guts a law hailed as a rare victory on FOIA policy, one that already includes several exemptions to protect victims’ privacy. “I’m grateful that it is going to conference so we can continue to advance our arguments about why this bill cuts too broadly away from accountability of police and prosecutors,” said Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government.
Virginia Mercury
The Virginia Senate briefly slowed down a House bill that would largely close records of inactive police cases to the public and press. Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, said he was sensitive to the concerns of some crime victims who want the bill, but also concerned that the legislation would prevent release of records in cases in which police fatally shot someone, for example. He said he anticipated a bill passing this year, but that the bill needed further discussion. Sen. Richard Stuart, R-King George, acknowledged on the Senate floor on Tuesday that he had misinterpreted parts of the bill before voting for it in committee. But he still wants the measure. “I think everybody needs to think about whether or not an average citizen in the public needs to look at these closed criminal files and if there’s any real, legitimate purpose that they would use them for,” Stuart said. “There are reasons why you don’t want the general public to get all of the information in a file.” While there’s no evidence of sensitive photos or records being released under current law by police, there is an example of police using the privacy protections in existing law to withhold records. Lori Goodbody said her sister made a FOIA request to Charlottesville police about the death of their niece, who died by suicide around late 2017. Even under the 2021 law which was designed to open files to the public, Charlottesville police provided Goodbody with records, she said, that were “99 percent redacted.”
Richmond Times-Dispatch
It may not be unusual for members of the public to complain about a lack of transparency on the part of elected officials, but it certainly seems unusual when one of those elected officials does so. But that’s what T.C. Collins, a new member of the King George Board of Supervisors, alleged last week regarding information about the county’s Service Authority. He said county officials demonstrated a “lack of transparency to the board members and to the public,” both about problems at wastewater treatment plants and an upcoming discussion about merging the Service Authority into county operations. The two boards are scheduled to meet at 5:30 p.m. March 22 in the board room of the Revercomb Building to begin what promise to be lengthy discussions about a possible merger or even perhaps the sale to a private company of the financially beleaguered water and sewer system. There’s been no public discussion of the action—only the acknowledgement by Service Authority members that they’d been briefed by County Administrator Chris Miller about it. “This meeting was not open to the public and this is not transparency,” Collins said.
The Free Lance-Star
Former Charlottesville City Manager Tarron Richardson voluntarily dropped his lawsuit against City Council and city officials Tuesday, according to court filings, and did so with prejudice, meaning the suit is permanently dismissed and can’t be reinstated. The civil suit was filed in United States District Court on Nov. 18. Richardson was seeking an unspecified amount of expenses and costs incurred in connection with the defendants’ actions and declarations by the court in his favor, including an injunction prohibiting the defendants from suppressing his free speech. He demanded a jury trial. In the lawsuit, Richardson alleged that an “overly broad” disparagement agreement that he entered into with the city violated the First Amendment. Richardson alleged he was required by the city to enter into the agreement when he resigned from his position in order to receive his severance pay. He also alleged that the defendants, in their capacity as city government employees, violated the First and 14th Amendments by allegedly engaging in viewpoint discrimination, which is the restriction of speech based on its content, and retaliating against Richardson based on the content of his speech.
The Daily Progress
Getting a criminal charge expunged – or removed – from one’s record can be a costly and daunting task. But it doesn’t have to be. That’s what Dumfries Vice Mayor Monae Nickerson said she found out when a family member who was criminally charged – but whose case was never prosecuted – looked into have the charge expunged. The family member’s lawyer said he could handle the expungement case for “discounted” fee of $1,200. “I was flabbergasted,” she said. Nickerson later learned about a Maryland town councilwoman’s expungement clinic and decided such an event could be useful for local residents. “[We] realized we have to bring this to Dumfries,” Nickerson said of herself and fellow Dumfries Town Councilwoman Selonia Miles. Both are hosting an upcoming “Expungement Clinic” for Dumfries residents on Saturday, March 19, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Dumfries Rescue Squad, 3800 Graham Park Road in Dumfries.
Prince William Times
The hours Virginia Beach Police have spent on mental health crises has increased almost 12% over the past year, according to a Freedom of Information Act Request filed by WHRO. The department responded to 3,186 mental health incidents last year, equaling 18,795 hours of police work, according to the department’s accounting. Those hours are taxing police department resources as officers also face shortages of mental health staff, difficulties finding facilities and legal red tape that slows their response down during crises. “The mental health calls for service are certainly some of the most prevalent cases we handle right now,” said Sgt. James Jaskowiak. He coordinates Virginia Beach police’s Crisis Intervention Team. A bill passed the General Assembly last week requiring the Secretary of Health and Human Resources and Public Safety and Homeland Security to study ways to reduce the time law enforcement spends taking people in mental health crises into custody.
WHRO
A little-known Virginia program has given nearly $930,000 in state subsidies to defense contractors over the last three years in a bid to increase exports abroad and shore up a key industry in the commonwealth. The program’s organizers in the Virginia Economic Development Partnership say they’re not aware of any other states that offer something like their Global Defense Program. VEDP helps companies craft business plans, attend trade shows and comply with complicated federal regulations. In addition to consulting advice, some of it pro bono, the program reimburses businesses for up to $10,000 in expenses related to exports such as accounting or legal services. A list of Global Defense Program recipients from 2018 through this year obtained by VPM in a public records request shows a range of businesses have gotten assistance from the program.
VPM
Seventy-one people addressed the Virginia Beach School Board Tuesday in response to one Facebook post made last month by board member Vicky Manning. A common phrase heard among the group of folks speaking out — “todos somos bienvenidos aqui.” It means ‘We are all welcome here.’ The phrase repeated again and again in Spanish as speakers looked directly at Manning. For the first time in nearly eight months, a packed board room as students, teachers, immigrants and school principals denounced Manning’s post on Facebook.
WAVY
stories of national interest
Sheila Albers strode into the Johnson County (Kansas) sheriff’s office, buzzed for help and slid her typed open records request into a metal tray, which the attendant pulled back through the protective window. The worker looked at Albers, read the letter, and glanced up again. “Hold on,” she said. She returned with another woman, who wrote a case number on a sticky note, and then told Albers that the city of Overland Park had the information she wanted. Not true, Albers said. The city had already told her it did not have the records, so she slid the request back through the window. The second woman then fetched the records division supervisor, who noted that the Kansas Open Records Act provides a grace period for the department to respond. Three days later, Albers returned, paid $25 for a flash drive and had her information. The data she collected that day, in May of last year, included the trajectory report of the 13 bullets Overland Park police officer Clayton Jenison had fired in January 2018, when he shot and killed Albers’ son, John, as the 17-year-old backed the family minivan out of the garage.
The Journal
editorials & columns
"There are few consequences to inaccurate or tardy reporting, and it has done little to slow the influx of cash to state races."
November’s gubernatorial campaign set a record as the most expensive in Virginia history. The two major-party candidates combined to raise at least $138 million, according to data compiled by the invaluable Virginia Public Access Project. That’s nearly double the $71 million raised by the major candidates in 2017 and nearly triple the $48 million raised for gubernatorial campaigns in 2001. And it’s a record that will surely fall in the 2025 election unless Virginia does something to reform its notoriously weak regulation of campaign cash. That won’t happen this year. The House and Senate in recent weeks struck down thoughtful and modest limits on political donations and how that money can be used. What one lawmaker called “the Wild West” of campaign finance in Virginia will continue. That’s as disappointing as it is unsurprising. Virginia lawmakers have long resisted calls to reform campaign financing and move the commonwealth away from a reliance on disclosure and transparency toward limits on donations and the use of that money. Virginia is different from other states in that it believes that finance reporting will provide the sort of oversight needed to effectively regulate the system. But there are few consequences to inaccurate or tardy reporting, and it has done little to slow the influx of cash to state races.
The Virginian-Pilot
