Virginia’s open-government landscape closed out the year with familiar tensions. From interactive planning maps to redacted reports and “curated” transparency; meeting locations, nondisclosure agreements and lost phones, to legal bills, audit gaps, and altered documents

There will always be those who err on the side of secrecy and message control, which is why VCOG still matters. For 30 years, we’ve pushed back against efforts to shield public information. We’ve answered thousands of FOIA questions and, through conferences, classes, talks, and now MCLE and FOIA officer training, we continue to educate both requesters and government officials.

The Virginia General Assembly gets underway on Jan. 14, and that’s another place VCOG will be: advocating for the public’s right to know, championing our own bills, while resisting ones that overreach. This year we’ll be assisted by Kai Macauley, our Chip Woodrum Legislative Intern from William & Mary.

We look forward to the year ahead, and we hope you will join us as we celebrate our 30th anniversary.

Cheers!

VCOG’s annual conference is April 23 in Norfolk. A registration page and an early look at panel topics are up and running.

And don’t forget to check out the awesome sponsors, including our host WHRO, who have already weighed in with their support.

Martinsville city council members continued to argue about the former city manager, an investigation prepared by Sands Anderson attorneys about the manager’s dismissal and a report summarizing the investigation. The latter was released to Cardinal News in response to a FOIA request and was almost entirely redacted. The council previously voted not to release the original investigation report. One council member, Aaron Rawls, said he would release details about the firing — but not the report itself — in early 2026.

Meanwhile, Mayor L.C. Jones, in announcing the completion of a forensic audit, shared a letter he sent auditors complaining about the firm’s lack of communication. According to Jones, the firm indicated it could not brief the council on the audit’s results until it received approval from Sands Anderson. That prompted the former city manager’s attorney to question why Sands Anderson was directing a third-party auditor’s work. Jones insisted the audit was city property that could be discussed without law firm-approval.

The City of Richmond will have a FOIA Library some time in 2026. But it’s not the one originally proposed, and its primary proponent, City Council Member Kenya Gibson, cautioned, “Some information is not transparency.” Gibson’s amended proposal would have published all FOIA requests and responses made to specific city departments (her original proposal would have included police and other public safety agencies, but she later removed them from the proposal’s scope) and posted them online for the public to access. A competing proposal from the mayor’s office would post requests and responses from more departments, but only those requests and responses curated by the administration, based on things like public interest and the enhancement of “public understanding.”

More than a dozen people gave public comment in support of Gibson’s proposal, including VCOG’s Megan Rhyne, and none spoke in favor of the mayor’s proposal. Nonetheless, the council voted 7-2 to adopt the mayor’s version. In support of the mayor’s proposal, Council Member Nicole Jones said, “Transparency without context can be very misleading,” and added, “Just because something is out there doesn’t mean it’s understandable.”

The Surry County Board of Supervisors chair had similar, skeptical comments about the FOIA process, even while endorsing the inclusion of a regular FOIA request report to be included with board materials: “When you talk about transparency, transparency goes also to the motivation – to see clean through what somebody’s trying to accomplish – so when you talk about transparency, make sure your motives are right, make sure your motives are pure,” he said. FOIA, however, does not include a purpose test, or a motive test, either, which is why it so often is blamed by those on the receiving end of a request for being “weaponized” by the requester.

Lee Enterprises, the current parent company of the Richmond Times-Dispatch and a dozen other local papers in Virginia, and Courthouse News joined together to file a lawsuit against the Virginia court system’s electronic case records system. The suit calls the system’s prohibition against lawyers sharing materials they’ve obtained from it (which are public records available in paper form at the courthouse) with others an unconstitutional prior restraint under the First Amendment.

The Prince William Board of Supervisors voted to spend another $400,000 to appeal a judge’s ruling that the council failed to follow the required public notice provisions before it voted in 2023 to rezone a section of county land to make way for Digital Gateway, a development of up to 37 data centers near the Manassas National Battlefield Park.

Because the University of Virginia had not responded to the FOIA request filed by The Cavalier Daily, the student newspaper had to rely on the records the university provided to Sen. Creigh Deeds to gain insight into the resignation of former president Jim Ryan and the Department of Justice’s investigation of the school. “In a statement to The Cavalier Daily, Deeds acknowledged that the University’s FOIA release did not include all of the materials that he requested. An anonymous source sent The Cavalier Daily records that confirmed that the BOV engaged a law firm to represent the board  prior to Ryan’s departure. An anonymous source also provided the paper with invoices obtained through FOIA showing the university has paid the law firm McGuireWoods more than $1.8 million for work related to the DOJ’s investigation.

The University of Virginia Board of Visitors moved its December meeting from the Rotunda on campus to a hotel, a 10-minute drive away and inaccessible by university or city buses. The official justification was to “efficiently manage meeting traffic and security” given the overlap with the holiday “Lighting of the Lawn,” which was scheduled to begin two hours after the conclusion of the last meeting on the last day of the three-day meeting.

The Southampton County School Board continued to dispute an audit prepared at the behest of the board of supervisors. Sands Anderson attorneys presented a slide show at the school board’s Dec. 29 meeting disputing some of the report’s key findings. The school board established a committee to promote transparency and accountability made up of two board members, plus the superintendent and staff. That makeup — with only two members of the board — means the group would fall outside of FOIA’s rules for open meetings.

Members of the Fluvanna County Board of Supervisors said the nondisclosure agreements they signed to keep details of two major developments — an energy management company and Amazon — under wraps created uncomfortable situations when residents asked questions about visible or widely rumored progress. As reported by the Fluvanna Review, the county’s attorney explained, “You can say Amazon. You can say the word. We have a specific sentence we can say, but that’s all we can say is that particular script. We can say the word.” The county’s economic development director said the secrecy is necessary because of projects receiving state incentives must remain confidential until the government makes a formal announcement.

An audit of Roanoke’s purchase card transactions showed that 946 charges between December 2024 and June 2025, totaling $884,283, were not approved according to protocol, though the audit did not identify any misappropriation or theft. The absence of approval was blamed on staffing shortages and problems with new financial software.

Contracts obtained by The Roanoke Rambler through FOIA show that Roanoke is paying a Richmond lobbying firm $6,000 per month, plus expenses, to pursue a casino license for the city. A columnist with The Roanoke Times also filed FOIA requests and learned there were related contracts, including a nondisclosure agreement signed by 17 different city officials, including all city council members. The columnist noted, “Somewhat oddly, the counterparty on each of those NDAs is listed as “CITY OF ROANOKE.”

Stafford County launched an interactive map showing pending and approved development projects around the county. If a project involves an upcoming public hearing, that information will also be included with on map.

Purcellville Vice Mayor Carl “Ben” Nett, who is already facing a recall challenge and criminal charges involving fraud and bid rigging, was accused by a special prosecutor of altering a document when responding to a FOIA request.

Richmond FOIA officer whistleblower lawsuit update: Lawyers for the city told a judge that the FOIA officer’s boss lost a phone which presum“ably would have held messages relevant to the officer’s claim of retaliation, but records retrieved through FOIA by The Richmonder showed that the city, at one point, believed that the phone had been found. An incident report stated that the phone was being kept at a “secure location” in an unidentified airport and city staff were trying to figure out how to get it back.

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

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