VCOG annual conference

VCOG's annual conference is March 16 in Charlottesville. We already have a program shaping up, and we will present our open government awards at the conference. Register today.

THANK YOU to our co-hosts:
Threshold Counsel and Willcox & Savage

And to our additional corporate and individual sponsors:
B2L Consulting, Glen Besa, CountingBeans LLC, Jane Elizabeth & John Bull, Joshua Heslinga, Thomas H Roberts & Associates, Jeff South,  Virginia Association of Broadcasters, WHRO, WTVR and WWBT.

Join them by making your own contribution to the conference.

What do lobbyist people do all day?

Over on Substack, I channel Richard Scarry's "Busytown" to talk about how so much of what I do as a lobbyist for VCOG isn't always obvious. 
Read the post here.
 

Eye roll of the month

HB 1880 was a bill Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker agreed to carry for us. It simply said that if a locality settles a claim against it for money, it has to create a record stating how much it paid. When asked, I told subcommittee members that I'd brought the bill to the FOIA Council this fall, where I'd engaged with local government attorneys and heard no opposition since. Nonetheless, the subcomittee defeated the bill, and sent it to the FOIA Council to "address all the unanswered questions." 
 

Open Government in the News

The Department of Education has informed several FOIA requesters that it was short-staffed and unable to meet FOIA deadlines, including responding to requests dated Nov. 30, Dec. 7 and Dec. 12. The department's spokesperson declined to say just how many requests were overdue.

The Library of Virginia submitted a report to the General Assembly warning that records archived using what was once the industry standard -- cellulose acetate lamination -- are in danger of deterioration in the future. The Warren County Circuit Court received a $40,000 grant to preserve and digitize records from the 1800s.

Halifax County started the year off with a brand new meeting room, wired up to accommodate hybrid meetings, where some members and the public are in person while some are participating electronically. VCOG has supported the use of hybrid meetings, but only when the quorum is physically assembled. Anything less is basically an all-virtual meeting.

A new year brought new board members, new leaders, new alliances and new procedural rules. Arlington County considered reducing the speaking time for individuals and group representatives if the number of speakers signed up to speak exceeds 75, an exceptionally high threshhold. The Spotsylvania School Boar reduced the time allowed for each speaker: three minutes, down from five. Prince William County took it a step further and considered a rule to limit speakers to one public comment slot per month.

A Fauquier County circuit judge put off a decision on a FOIA case that challenges the Town of Warrenton's use of the working papers exemption to withhold records of both the town mayor and the town manager. The exemption has traditionally been interpreted as allowing one or the other individual to use it but not both. The judge said it "dawned" on him that the law doesn't say who has the authority to designate someone as the public body's "chief executive officer." He asked the parties to brief the issue.

A Chesapeake Planning Commission member filed a FOIA suit against the city council over records that were not turned over and possibly destroyed. The records were related to a closed meeting where council members talked about how to keep the planning commission member from being seated. At first, the commission member was told records did not exist, but then the city sent him photos of two records that were taken by a council member during the closed session.

One of the first orders of business for the new Portsmouth City Council was to oust its city manager, whose controversial hiring six months earlier highlighted deep divides among council members. The mayor presented a document in closed session, which The Virginian-Pilot obtained, stating several problems with the manager (who was once the city's police chief), like her hiring of employees with conflicts and her alleged failure to complete the city's annual comprehensive financial report on time. Other records The Pilot obtained revealed that the manager offered to resign in exchange for $300,000 in severance and other compensation. 

Loudoun County's new rules included one to cut meetings off at midnight. Several meetings in 2022 lasted into the wee hours of the morning. "The public is not going to be sitting up here with us until 12:30 and 1 o'clock. By that time, the public has left, and they mad,” said Chair Phyllis Randall.

A circuit court judge in Charlottesville ruled that the city council did not violate FOIA when it voted after midnight in a December 2021 meeting to transfer the Robert E. Lee statute to the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.

A federal judge in Charlottesville dismissed a lawsuit brought against the city by the city's first Black female police chief. She accused 10 government and police leaders of plotting to oust her and then harming her reputation with their public comments.

A Loudoun County circuit judge dismissed the case against a parent who refused to leave a school board meeting in June 2021 during a discussion about the school district's policies on transgender students and Critical Race Theory. A general district court had found the man guilty in October.

A former Halifax County School board member, who was also the county's chief animal control warden, was found guilty on two charges of embezzlement, ordered to pay nearly $14,000 in restitution and sentenced to a suspended 30-year prison term. The judge noted that the amount may not have been much, but it occurred over at least 233 transactions at places like Dollar General and Food Lions, several times a week, which represented a serious betrayal of public trust.

The new chair of the Virginia Parole Board suggested the agency "must embrace an over-the-top level of transparency" and made several recommendations, such as conducing "quasi-public" parole hearings open to the media. Sen. Joe Morrissey is carrying a bill this year that would eliminate a provision that says FOIA does not apply to the Parole Board.

A review of public records obtained through FOIA by The Roanoke Rambler showed that dozens of people on so-called citizen advisory boards in Roanoke do not actually live in the city, even though city code says only Roanoke residents should serve on these boards except in "an unusual circumstance."

In October 2021, Loudoun County Public Schools commissioned a law firm to conduct an investigation into the school district's handling of the sexual assault of students by a fellow student earlier in the year. The finished report still has not been released. A district official insisted that public funds weren't used since the report was paid for by the school district's insurer (whose premium the district does pay for, but.....).

King William County Public Schools held onto its own consultant's report, this one investigating the actions of some members of the school board. Officials say it's a personnel record.

After Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced his decision to pull the plug on a Ford Motor Co. battery plant in Pittsylvania County, local officials there said they couldn't comment because of a non-disclosure agreement it signed with Ford.

Petersburg police refused to release numbers backing up their assertion that the office is short-staffed. The police chief said the "criminal element may know we may not have enough people in a certain area." 

NPR secured the release of four audio recordings donated privately to the Library of Virginia. The tapes are recordings made during the capital-punishment execution of four inmates between 1987 and 1990. The Department of Corrections allegedly has more tapes but has refused to divulge them.

A district court judge in Spotsylvania denied a request by a school board member to get a protective order against a critic who the member says has been bombarding her with emails she felt were intended to intimidate her. She also said the critic had screamed at her during school board meetings.

The director of the Board of Local and Regional Jails withheld 125 records related to its response to four deaths recently at the Richmond City Justice Center, citing in part the governor's working papers exemption.

Media outlets went to court to ask a Virginia Beach judge to allow reporters to attend a detention hearing for two juveniles charged with murder. 

The Blackstone Town Council made plans to record, live on video, the opening of all bids for town projects.