Grab an extra big cup of coffee to get through this month’s newsletter. There’s so. much. going. on!!! Two towns called off appeals of their FOIA cases; a school board settled its FOIA case; and the Virginia Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in another FOIA dispute. Meanwhile, release of the UVA shooting report may again be delayed, and the General Assembly session churned on, with two VCOG-inspired bills still in play. We also welcomed our 2025 legislative intern, and we collected dozens of access-related stories to round up the month.

Phew!

If you click through to any of the links to VCOG’s website, you’ll also notice things look a little (OK, a lot) different. We’ve redone our website, something we already wanted to do, but something we had to do sooner than we expected due to technical issues with the underlying platform. That’s a roundabout way of saying, it’s still a work in progress, and we appreciate your patience as we kick the tires on the site to see what’s working, and what’s not.

Two Virginia towns that have fought for years to keep records away from the public have abandoned their efforts. The Town of Warrenton refused to release more than 1,000 email messages of the town manager and the town mayor, saying they were the working papers of both. The Court of Appeals ruled in July that, if the exemption applied, it applied to either the manager or the mayor, but not both (a position VCOG took in an amicus brief we filed). The town voted to ask the Supreme Court to review the decision, but before the Supreme Court could agree to accept the case, the newly sworn-in members of the town council voted in January to drop the appeal and release at least some of the records.

And in South Hill, the town agreed to stop its pursuit of an appeal in a case the Supreme Court ruled on in 2022. At that time, the Supreme Court said the personnel exemption applied to information that a reasonable person would consider an invasion of privacy if it was disclosed, but not more. The case was remanded to the trial court for review of several complaints about an employee and resignation letters of others. Using the new standard, the trial court said the records had to be released for the most part, though with a few light redactions. The town appealed to the Court of Appeals, which agreed with the trial court on Dec. 10, 2024, and the town was on its way to asking the Supreme Court to weigh in again when it finally agreed to settle with the plaintiff.

The Warrenton case may not have much in the way of statewide impact, at least on the either/or question because it was not a position we saw much of — if any — in more than 20 years. The South Hill case, though, is different. It is a recalibration of the personnel exemption. It clearly establishes a duty to redact, and it also endorses a case-by-case review of records under a rubric of invasion of privacy. We should all take note.

Two pro-FOIA bills have passed the Senate, and one other appears to be on its way as the General Assembly reaches the point where bills cross over from one chamber to the other. SB876, a bill being carried by Sen. Adam Ebbin at VCOG’s request, aims to cut down on surprise actions at public meetings. It says last-minute agenda items added at the meeting can’t be acted on unless the matter is time-sensitive. It passed the Senate, 40-0, on Jan. 31.

SB1029 is the product of a FOIA Council workgroup, and being carried by Sen. Danica Roem, and it aims to rein in the hourly rate charged for filling FOIA requests. The bill has parts that neither government nor open government advocates like, which usually means it is a true compromise. Roem has been working on this idea for years. VCOG president, and member of the FOIA Council, Maria Everett, testified in support of the bill at a Jan. 22 hearing. It passed the Senate on a 38-2 vote.

HB2125 is another bill that VCOG requested. Del. Betsy Carr is carrying this bill that would require FOIA officers who are also the public body’s attorney to get training from the FOIA Council. That bill made it past two committees and is awaiting action on the House floor.

VCOG has worked on a number of other bills and was pleased that Del. Marty Martinez asked that his bill be stricken from the docket. HB1763 would have allowed “advisory boards” to avoid ever having to meet in public; instead meeting via Zoom (or equivalent) 100% of the time.

Fifteen months after it fired its superintendent, Accomack County Schools entered into a settlement with her, a teacher and three residents where the school board admitted to violating FOIA. The plaintiffs’ attorney, Kevin Martingayle, said the school system admits to violating FOIA, but doesn’t specify how. The settlement does, however, require the board to do certain things in the future: using a room of sufficient size (instead of a conference room) so that the public can attend; providing three days’ notice of meetings (already the law), and paying closer attention to motions made on closed sessions. The board also agreed to pay the plaintiffs’ attorney fees.

The Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in the case of Minium v. Hines, where police reform activist Alice Minium is seeking unredacted salary data from the Hanover Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff blacked out hundreds of names from the roster, saying it was allowed by a section of FOIA applicable to undercover operations; the sheriff said just about everyone in the department might be needed for undercover work some time in the future. The trial court agreed, and Minium appealed. A three-judge panel questioned attorneys for both sides about application of the personnel exemption’s exception, which says salary by name must be disclosed, and on the scope of what could be considered “undercover” work. VCOG filed an amicus brief in support of Minium.

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Sentencing for the man who pleaded guilty to the murder of three of his UVA classmates has been pushed back from February to maybe nine months from now. And with the delay in sentencing comes, most likely, the related delay in disclosing the school’s independent investigation into the events leading up to and after the shooting. UVA has said it won’t release the report until Christopher Darnell Jones Jr.’s sentencing, despite the fact that the family wants to see the report, that The Daily Progress is suing to force release, and that UVA has given multiple different reasons for why the report has to stay confidential. The Daily Progress summarized it this way:

“In November 2023, UVa declined to release the report and has since fended off every attempt to force its release. The reasons why the report remains under lock and key have changed depending on who is speaking and where. The university’s communications department has said releasing the report would interfere with Jones’ criminal trial, attorneys for the university have said the report contains private personal details that would be illegal to release, and UVa President Jim Ryan has said that the information in the report was both inaccurate and would upset the families of the victims.”

VCOG is pleased to have been working with Peggy Stansbery this General Assembly session as the 2025 Chip Woodrum Legislative Intern. Peggy is a December 2024 graduate of VCU, where she majored in English and minored in media studies. She was the executive editor of The Commonwealth Times for two years, as well as an editorial intern at RZR News and a public relations intern at The Hodges Partnership, where she worked on the account for Chesterfield County.

Peggy has shadowed Megan Rhyne around the General Assembly Building and spent two days learning from VPM reporter Jahd Khalil about how he and others cover the legislature. She was introduced to the House of Delegates by Del. Sam Rasoul, who holds the seat in Roanoke that the internship’s namesake, Chip Woodrum, held in the early 2000s. The paid internship, which started in 2015, has been made possible by a generous gift from the Woodrum family and donations from individuals who worked with or were fond of Chip.

In an email sent to Norfolk’s mayor and city council before an interview with a Virginia Mercury reporter, the head of the Hampton Roads Ventures and the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority said the reporter was vindictive and intended harm; he was “more about making mischief” than reporting the facts. The reporter was following up on information that two years after the city council directed HRV to prioritize local investments, the company appeared not to have done so.

The Bristol City Council voted to censure one of its members for lying about city employees, including the city manager. The action came nearly three weeks after the council member issued a public apology on Facebook, saying, “The private message contained numerous falsehoods about [the city manager] that I knew to be false at the time I wrote the message. I have violated the standards of conduct on several occasions and have been previously warned by council, about these violations and how it impacts employees and their lives.” The statement also acknowledged that Eads had a right to file a FOIA for his documents. “It is not a violation of my privacy to be subjected to a FOIA request.”

In emails obtained from Red Onion State Prison, officials at the facility talked about how they could make inmates pay for their own burn treatment. “Once we iron through this, we can send the word through the inmate population that they’re going to be charged [sic] thousands for their medical due to intentional manipulation.”

Richmond said it would cost more than $4,000 to produce records for two WTVR reporters: $1,440 for one and $2,975 for the other. The reporters were asking for records related to the city’s recent water crisis. While acknowledging that the request was fairly broad, one of the reporters, Tyler Layne, asked Mayor Danny Avula for his thoughts on the estimate. Avula said he was unaware of the FOIA requests.

The Town Council of Mineral reinstated a council member it had removed from office in November using a closed-door “trial” the members said was appropriate under Robert’s Rules of Order. The ousted member protested at a December meeting, but was removed in handcuffs. In January, the town backtracked, maybe in response to the Commonwealth’s attorney’s letter saying that the Code of Virginia outlines how elected board members can be removed.

Petersburg citizens who had mounted a pressure campaign were relieved when the city council decided not to adopt changes to the public comment period that would shorten the total time allowed from 30 minutes to 15.

The Winchester City Council continues to consider adopting a policy for its public comment period rules, though it disapproved of a proposal made by the city attorney to limit individual speaking time to 90 seconds and to limit the total comment period to 30 minutes. The council asked for a redraft for its next meeting.

A Frederick County parent was removed from a school board meeting when she tried to read from a book she said was in the school library and that board members would be “disgusted,” “appalled,” and possibly “shocked” by. After her removal, another parent tried to finish the former’s comments but she, too, was asked to leave.

The Richmond Public School Board adopted new procedural rules that will limit how long board members can talk on each issue and prohibit last-minute agenda changes except in the case of emergencies. (VCOG has proposed a bill this session that addresses this latter point.)

A week after the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported a story about how Richmond confirmed it issued 32 severance packages from 2017 to 2024 but refused to disclose related documents or individual amounts, Mayor Danny Avula said his administration would release them.

Hanover County Public Schools released the investigation it commissioned into alleged misconduct surrounding a high school baseball team. The report was almost entirely redacted with the exemption for personnel information used as the justification. Six other related documents were withheld altogether. (See the piece about personnel information above.)

The newly elected mayor of Purcellville and two other new members called a special meeting where they moved to fire the town manager and hire the former mayor in his place, prompting another council member to criticize what appeared to be a prior discussion among a majority of members. The decision was being “forced down the citizens’ throats with the very weak excuse of this is what we were elected to do. You weren’t elected to do this,” he said. Another member questioned the new manager’s contract, which was $9,000 more, annually, than the fired manager. He accused the mayor of increasing the salary amount without input from the rest of the council.

VCOG is excited to announce our annual conference keynote speaker: Chaz Nuttycombe. Chaz has made a national name for himself as the only elections forecaster in the country who calls every single legislative contest. A Richmond native and Virginia Tech graduate, he uses odds-making, mapping and GIS data to inform his predictions. Hear what he has to say about the 2024 elections and his new venture, State Navigate.

We’re also on Bluesky: @opengovva.bsky.social

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