Transparency News, 6/2/2022
Thursday
June 2, 2022
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter
Contact us at vcog@opengovva.org
state & local news stories
Several lawmakers called out Virginia’s budget negotiators Wednesday for adding a new marijuana possession crime in the state budget in a process that lacked transparency and public input. Fairfax Democratic Sens. Janet Howell and George Barker, the chair and vice chair of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee, negotiated the state’s new budget in private talks with House Appropriations Chair Barry Knight, R-Virginia Beach. Previous legislative discussions on marijuana allowed for public commentfrom people who “had been disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs,” McClellan said, but the current process didn’t. Several other lawmakers also criticized the decision by Howell, Barker and Knight to write marijuana policy into law without the usual feedback and transparency. Even some budget conferees — the small group of lawmakers who help write the budget — were caught by surprise over the marijuana provision, which was just released publicly Sunday.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors is getting a 10% pay raise. The supervisors on Wednesday voted to hike their own their yearly compensation by nearly $2,000. Interim County Attorney Cynthia Hudson said the increase from $17,311 to $19,042.00 per year is influenced by cost of living increases, with an inflation factor of 10%. The increase will take effect July. In addition to the salary, the board Chair, Donna Price, will get an additional annual stipend of $1,800 and Vice Chair, Bea LaPisto-Kirtley will get $35 for each board meeting she leads. All supervisors voted for the increase, except LaPisto-Kirtley. She said she would not support it because of a campaign promise. Supervisor Diantha McKeel said the county needs to look into increasing supervisors’ compensation even higher in order to attract candidates for the Board of Supervisors that represent more diverse populations.
The Daily Progress
stories of national interest
A Justice Department probe found that members of the Obama administration did not seek to reveal the identity of Michael Flynn “for political purposes or other inappropriate reasons,” a newly disclosed report reveals. The document details the results of a monthslong investigation into the so-called unmasking of Flynn, who briefly served as national security adviser to then-president Donald Trump before he resigned in February 2017 in the wake of the revelation that he had lied about phone conversations he held with Russia’s ambassador to the US.
Buzz Feed News
editorials & columns
The Courier Journal’s recent story, “Louisville Metro falls further behind in releasing public records as Kentucky law requires” suggests the following lede: “The value of information is partly a function of time.” What does this quotation from Fiduccia vs. U.S. Department of Justice — a 1999 federal case in which the Department of Justice kept a public records requester waiting for 15 years instead of the 20 days required by the Freedom of Information Act — mean? It means that in enacting laws aimed at securing the public’s right to know, lawmakers recognized that as time passes interest fades, demands for change are blunted, and the news cycle moves on to the next local, state or national controversy or crisis. Urgency yields to bureaucratic inertia. It means that the public learned about the death of yet another Louisville Metro Department of Corrections inmate as we awaited the release of records by local officials about the circumstances of the death of the last inmate... or the inmate before him, or the inmate before her...
Amye Bensenhaver, Courier Journal
