Transparency News, 3/16/2022

Wednesday
March 16, 2022

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state & local news stories

Today: the first of three lunchtime drop-in sessions to ask, "WTF? What the FOIA." It's free, but you have to register, and you can drop in or leave at any time during any or all sessions.

James Madison
March 16, 1751 - June 28, 1836 

Jailed Roanoke City Councilman Robert Jeffrey was due back in court Wednesday to face further proceedings after a jury convicted him Tuesday of bilking the city out of $15,000 in pandemic relief funds. Prosecutors have filed two sets of charges alleging financial crimes and won convictions Tuesday as the result of the first of two jury trials planned in Roanoke Circuit Court. His run-in with the law could derail his civic efforts for some time. Each of the charges on which Jeffrey was convicted carries a penalty of one to 20 years. In addition, Jeffrey will be forced from office if any felony conviction against him is still standing after his final appeal, should he decide to do that. His attorney declined to comment Tuesday. Council members plan to gather behind closed doors at their next meeting Monday to discuss what the “council should do moving forward,” Vice Mayor Trish White-Boyd said Tuesday night when asked about Jeffrey’s conviction and jailing. According to the first set of allegations, slightly more than a week after his election, Jeffrey falsified applications he submitted to the city’s Economic Development Authority for pandemic-relief grants. He received payment in December 2020. Jeffrey was sworn into office in January 2021.
The Roanoke Times

One lender has forgiven the debt but the other has not and that leaves the Lewis & Clark Exploratory Center and Albemarle County’s Economic Development Authority still working on a repayment plan for a long outstanding loan from Albemarle County. Albemarle and Charlottesville each loaned the nonprofit center $130,000 in 2013 for construction of its facility at Darden Towe Park. Charlottesville voted to forgive the loan in 2015, conditioned on loan forgiveness by Albemarle, but the county has not forgiven the loan. On Tuesday, Lewis & Clark Exploratory Center board members spoke with the county development authority’s board, mostly in a closed session, about the center’s financial situation. Center board member Sarah Gran said they would discuss more details about the center’s finances in closed session because “there’s some information that the executive director and the board didn’t want to be shared.”
The Daily Progress

During Staunton City Council’s work session prior to their regular meeting last Thursday, council member Brenda Mead motioned to add a new item to the agenda: a discussion of the city’s “new direction” for the city manager position. Mead’s intention was to allow members of city council, specifically the majority block, to respond to the many residents who have reached out and questioned the decision-making of council following the forced resignation of former city manager Steve Rosenberg. However, the caveat was that council members were not allowed to mention or allude to Rosenberg. This was due to advice from City Attorney John Blair, who had laid out ground rules for the conversation that aimed to avoid mentioning individual city employees. Throughout the conversation, council members Carolyn Dull, Mead, and Terry Holmes brought up how they felt that the previous city manager had been doing well given the circumstances, especially during the height of the COVID-19 epidemic. However, those thoughts could not be brought up without interjections from the city attorney to not mention Rosenberg individually. Holmes, at one point, was taken aback, arguing that his reference was pertinent, but was quickly shut down by Blair. 
News Leader

A deal between Front Royal and Warren County over how to handle local tourism and marketing remains in limbo. Council members stopped short of discussing a draft memorandum of agreement with the county at a Monday work session. Members were given a different version of the agreement at the meeting that they and the Warren County Board of Supervisors endorsed at a previous joint work session. Town Manager Steven Hicks said he received an email at 4:45 p.m. that day from County Administrator Edwin Daley with a revised memorandum of understanding. Council member Amber F. Morris asked that the council receive last-minute revisions to agreements earlier than a couple of hours before members meet to consider such documents. Morris pointed out that the version included in the members’ agenda materials packets reflects an agreement endorsed by the council and Warren County supervisors at a recent, 4-hour meeting. Council member Letasha T. Thompson said she supports the version of the agreement members originally endorsed, not the revised document provided to members at the last minute. Morris questioned why the council would consider an agreement that the Board of Supervisors had not yet approved. “This is the, by definition, most ineffective use of government,” Morris said. “I have nothing to discuss with this.”
The Northern Virginia Daily
 

editorials & columns

"The latest development in Richmond gives police and prosecutors the secrecy they want."

It’s no surprise the General Assembly evinces a certain contempt for journalists. After all, we expose legislators’ shortcomings, hypocrisies and pettiness. Lawmakers don’t have to make my job any easier – and it’s rare when they do. Why those folks hold such disdain for Virginia’s residents, though, is puzzling. Because when legislators stick it to members of the Fourth Estate, they’re targeting everyone else, too. Citizens often learn of governmental problems and misdeeds through the work of reporters.  Which brings me to the assembly’s latest anti-transparency move. It essentially reversed an open-government law covering police records, one that had been on the books less than a year. Falsehoods and misinformation – perhaps intentional – clouded the debate, leading to the final vote this past weekend. I know relatives of crime victims are sensitive about anything published or aired about their loved ones.  It’s not fair, however, to elevate the emotions of the few against the broader concern by all Virginians to have proper oversight and scrutiny of police agencies.  The stance legislators took is also glaringly paternalistic. They’re suggesting the millions of Virginians who live here aren’t smart or sophisticated enough to determine whether the 2021 law had gone too far in the few months it was in effect, and whether gratuitous information was being published. The latest development in Richmond gives police and prosecutors the secrecy they want. Grieving families sensitive to any reports about the slayings of loved ones will, too. Even though they already had protections. Millions of other Virginians? You’re left in the dark.
Roger Chesley, Virginia Mercury