A Rappahannock County judge ruled the board of supervisors there
improperly closed a meeting to talk about an advertisement seeking a replacement for an outgoing county attorney as well as alternatives to the county attorney set-up. The topic was not "legal advice," nor did it fall under the personnel exemption for "prospective candidates for employment." The exemption is for "specific candidates," the judge wrote, not candidates in general. Further, even though the board did not vote on these criteria, "a tacit grant of permission to allow the criteria of the job to be established by the staff" was taken in closed session.
A Fauquier County judge turned back a petition by
The Washington Post to open future proceedings in the case of a Faquier teenager charged with the murder of his mother and brother. Though the defendant will be tried as an adult, the judge said there was still historical and statutory protection for juvenile defendants. The judge ordered a court reporter to be present in the future, though, to create a transcript of the proceedings.
The Legal Aid Justice Center and the University of Virginia School of Law's Immigration Clinic filed a FOIA case against the Rockingham County Sheriff's office for its failure to disclose records
related to the sheriff's collaboration with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The suit alleges the sheriff did not cite an exemption for why some records were not provided.
When a subcommittee of the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors scheduled its required public comment period in consideration of a proposal to raise tuition, it said members of the public who wanted to speak during the hour-long period
to sign up seven days in advance, prompting an advocate for college affordability to call the move "an unnecessary barrier" to public comment.
Virginia Commonwealth University police investigated allegations that members of the student government
removed stacks of The Commonwealth Times, the student newspaper, apparently in response to a front-page article about conflict within the Student Government Association.
Smyth County joined the ranks of localities around the state and country who are
encrypting their police scanner signal. Local fire and EMS services were left on a public feed, though a spokesperson said those signals could be encrypted in the future.
While the Virginia House and Senate courts committees publicly interviewed all candidates for vacant judgeships, the same could not be said for the commerce committees, both of which
publicly interviewed just two of the six candidates. The remaining four were met with privately.
When the Virginia House and Senate have agreed to different versions of the same bill, the bills are sent to a committee of conference to work out the differences. These committees, in practice,
do not actually meet as a group. Instead, compromise drafts are circulated, and conferees huddle in hallways and offices. This year, nearly 100 pieces of legislation were sent to conference.
Danville officials
met in closed session with representatives from a casino company hoping to open the first casino in the area, as part of legislation allowing casinos in five economically distressed cities in the state. A work session was scheduled for March 31, and again the discussion was slated for a closed session. The meeting appears to have been canceled, though, in light of the state of emergency
The Virginia Beach City Council considered whether or not to
turn its convention bureau into a nonprofit to give it more flexibility with procurement, compensation, hiring and firing (and presumably FOIA).
The Winchester City Council again considered a proposal -- for the third time since June 2017 -- to
prohibit council members from discussing personnel issues with "any person or entity, media, or agency representative" unless authorized by formal action or consensus of the council. Anyone found in violation could be censured, but it would not affect the member's ability to participate in or vote at meetings.
The new communications and community outreach coordinator hired by the Martinsville school system is the son of one school board member and the stepson-in-law of another. Neither board member voted on the appointment, and the superintendent asserted that everything about the hire was done properly. Nonetheless, when a
Martinsville Bulletin reporter asked to see the certification the two board members signed to state that they'd had no involvement in the hiring process, he was told that
the "requested documentation does not exist."
According to records acquired by the
Richmond Times-Dispatch, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney
spent approximately $1 million to examine the $1.5 billion Coliseum-area redevelopment proposal that was eventually quashed by the city council. More than half of the total was paid before the plan was formally released to the public.
The former executive director of the Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport was
found guilty Tuesday of 23 of the 24 felony charges against him, stemming from the airport's arrangement to guarantee an airline's loan with money from a government grant. Included among the charges were ones related to his misuse of an airport credit card.
