Transparency News, 12/9/2022
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December 9, 2022
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state & local news stories
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Virginia State Police acknowledged “human error” caused them to miss a violent incident in the past of a former state trooper who killed three people in California last month, but the agency is refusing to release 247 pages of personnel records that could shed more light on his time as a state employee. State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said the agency was choosing to “exercise its statutory discretion” to keep the employment records confidential. Asked if the agency could explain that choice given the significant public interest in the murders Edwards committed and his background as a police officer in Virginia, Geller said the state’s transparency laws don’t require the agency to comment further. “The materials you are seeking constitute personnel information of this agency concerning identifiable individuals,” Geller said, pointing to a longstanding exemption in the Virginia Freedom of Information Act that allows state and local governments to shield a wide array of records dealing with the hiring, firing and performance of public employees. However, the Supreme Court of Virginia recently narrowed the exemption in an October opinion that concluded government agencies don’t have a blanket right to shield all personnel records. Instead, the court found, the exemption only applies to truly private information, defined as anything that, if disclosed, would appear to be an “unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” to a reasonable person. Federal FOIA guidance says that “after death, a person no longer possesses privacy rights.” But that interpretation doesn’t bind state agencies or state courts.
Virginia Mercury
There are 577 electronic files that exist at the University of Virginia related to Christopher Darnell Jones Jr.'s involvement with the University's Threat Assessment Team and the school's investigation into an alleged hazing issue where Jones' name was mentioned. UVA officials have declined to release those records. Jones Jr., 23, is charged with murdering three UVA football players in a November campus shooting. A Freedom of Information Act Officer at UVA cited the Virginia code that allowed the university to withhold the records if they desire.
WTVR
Former Loudoun County Broad Run District School Board member Andrew Hoyler spoke out on Facebook on Tuesday night following the firing of former superintendent Scott Ziegler, saying there wasn't much in a bombshell special grand jury report which led to the firing that he didn't already know from his time on the School Board. In an interview, Hoyler said based on reading news articles, police reports, court cases and the independent review conducted by the School Board, there wasn't much new information to him in the grand jury's report. The School Board agreed to conduct the independent review in late October 2021. On Jan. 14, the School Board announced operational changes but said it would not be releasing the report to the public, even in redacted form. Hoyler said he only had about 30 minutes to read the independent review at the time. He also said he learned a lot the day he testified before the grand jury. “A lot of questions were asked such as, 'were you aware of this or of this,' and a couple I wasn’t aware of,” Hoyler said. The School Board voted without public discussion after a two-hour closed session on Tuesday night.
Loudoun Now
