Wait for it….

Actually, no, you don’t have to wait for it because it sounds like a broken record: more and more local government meetings are more and more vitriolic, frustrating more and more citizens. City councils, school boards, boards of supervisors: in every corner of the state, infighting and personal grievances disrupt meetings, impact public comment periods and turn FOIA requests into political weapons to be used against one another.

And that doesn’t even count the exorbitant prices being charged to obtain records that any one of us is legally entitled to.

As I wrote about this month, the public’s right to know dates back to the founding of the country, but on the eve of our 250th birthday, it seems we’re losing our ability to observe the basic rules, procedures and civil norms.

I look for solace in our younger generations. Maddie Walker, a rising second year law student at the University of Richmond, is VCOG’s 2025 Laurence E. Richardson Legal Fellow. She’s contributed to this newsletter with some of the open-government blurbs below.

VCOG has offered the Richardson Fellowship, which was endowed by the family of the late Charlottesville broadcaster, virtually every year of its 29-year history. The fellows are always incredibly bright, willing to engage and full of energy. They are the future of transparent government and will carry all of us through to our tricentennial.

We should strive to be good models for them.

Sometimes we need hyperbole to make a point. And the point here is that as a government of, by and for the people, the people have a right to know how decisions are made, how their money is spent and who is responsible for the decisions that impact them.

It’s not a novel concept. One of the grievances enumerated in the Declaration of Independence was that King George III convened legislative bodies at unusual places and away from the repository of public records, “for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.” James Madison famously added, “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

The rancor among Martinsville council members continued throughout May following the walkout of one member — Aaron Rawls — last month after a deputy approached him on the dais as he complained about the salary increase approved for the city manager. Rawls filed a FOIA request for credit card spending records, which he then shared with the Martinsville Bulletin. The records show thousands of dollars were spent on travel the city manager said was for training. However, there were also charges for a golfing video game subscription as well as a visit to a nail salon. The mayor defended the charges at a later budget work session, prompting Rawls to question, “If you all are making such great use of this training, why do you still not know how to run open meeting sessions? Why are you voting for staff with no records?” At the council meeting the next day, multiple citizens chimed in during the comment period, but not before the human resources director was escorted out by the city manager when he took offense to Rawls’ accusations of incompetence. He apologized to the audience when he returned, but was escorted out again after calling city hall “toxic.” The city manager suggested that some city employees might be contemplating suing the city for defamation. And during a recess, a council member physically stepped between Rawls and the mayor while they argued. Two days before the mayor canceled the council’s May 27 meeting for lack of a quorum, the city manager designated the police chief to serve as a point of contact while she and her staff took time away from their jobs. The move prompted Bulletin reporter Bill Wyatt to pen an op-ed that noted two members were physically present in the council chamber on the day of the meeting and the mayor said he was fully prepared to attend a meeting, meaning three members of the five-member board (i.e., a quorum) were available for the meeting.

Unrest plagued Hopewell during the month of May after a racially divided city council fired the city manager and the city clerk on May 1. A few days later, the Commonwealth’s Attorney issued an opinion saying the motion to terminate the pair was improper under Rule 36 of Robert’s Rules of Order. Citizens of both races vented their outrage at a subsequent meeting, and some were escorted out by police. A few days later, one of the Black council members initiated assault charges 

against the city’s white attorney. Video of the meeting shows the attorney put his hand on the councilor’s wrist as the councilor moved to unmute his microphone. The city’s mayor, who voted for the firing, tried to calm the waters later in the month saying the administrator’s termination may have been without cause, but it was not without “justification,” and that he couldn’t discuss the matter further out of respect for employee privacy.

Greene County employees told The Daily Progress that they’d been forbidden from speaking directly to the press about county business. County officials said there was no official policy, and the county refused multiple FOIA requests for related records. Another staffer told the Progress that they could not confirm facts and that all questions should be routed through the Greene County Board of Supervisors chair. The chair confirmed that he was the only one who communicates facts to the press; any information the staff delivers to the press must be clearly marked as “opinion.”

For the second time, Richmond City Council fired a city employee without a public vote. In September, a council member confirmed to media that the council voted in closed session to terminate the chief of staff. On May 12, according to emails, the council agreed in a closed meeting to terminate the inspector general. Neither action was accompanied by a public vote. A letter obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch indicated that several employees in the IG’s office threatened to resign over the firing. The city said it would not comment on personnel matters.

According to records obtained through FOIA by a transparency advocacy blogger, a law firm has billed Richmond more than $130,000 so far to defend the whistleblower lawsuit filed by the city’s former FOIA officer.

Despite agreeing during a public meeting to set aside $50,000 of unallocated funds until they could agree on what to do with it, the City of Richmond’s budget spreadsheet published online included a $50,000 allocation to the former council president’s nonprofit organization offered by the current council president. An interim council staffer said the amendment was a mistake.

According to text messages obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch through a FOIA request, staff at Richmond’s water treatment plant failed to tell the utilities director about an April 23 fluoride discharge into the drinking water. He learned of the incident four days later from the Virginia Department of Health, while Richmond’s mayor had to be told by the Henrico County manager.

The University of Virginia estimated that it would take more than 100 staff hours to review over 6,000 records generated by the Augusta Free Press’ request for records related to the Trump administration’s decision to transfer ownership of the Federal Executive Institute to the university, something the university said was a surprise.

A group of Lynchburg business leaders sent an email to the city council and appeared at a public meeting to urge council members to stop fighting among themselves. The email singled out Martin Misjuns, calling his actions “unprofessional, hostile, a deeply toxic.” The business leaders said the council’s behavior could be jeopardizing investment in the city.

Using publicly available data, the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism has created a database on vaccination rates for kindergarteners. Public schools must report kindergarten vaccination data to the state each year, indicating the number of measles, mumps and rubella, and MMR shots. The database excludes the state’s 56,000 homeschooled children.

Payroll records obtained by The Smithfield Times from Surry County indicated the finance director was no longer working for the county, even though his name still appeared on the website. The payroll data redacted the number of hours worked for each pay period except for one, which the county attorney described as a clerical error. 

 

Warren County and the Samuels Library continued their fraught relationship, this time over a FOIA request. The library refused to accept a request filed by the board of supervisors by claiming, “Warren County is a political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Virginia and, thus, a component part of the sovereign. It is not, therefore, a citizen of the Commonwealth to which a response is required under VFOIA.” The library estimated it would cost $10,487.60, at a labor rate of $100/hour, even if it did have to respond. The county countered that the request was signed by an individual and has asked the FOIA Council to issue a formal advisory opinion on the issue. 

Tommy Harvey, Nelson County’s longest-serving supervisor, hasn’t attended a board meeting since May 2023, marking a year of absence. His wife attributed his absences to medical issues. It is unclear whether Nelson County has a policy in place to allow board members with temporary or permanent disabilities to call in remotely to meetings.

The chair of the Frederick County Board of Supervisors spent the final eight minutes of a meeting to question the ethics of a fellow board member and to criticize letters to the editor appearing in The Winchester Star. On the latter, the chair added that the Star should “be careful about what they’re publishing, because they could be liable as well for anything published that violates the law.” Before the chair could finish the remarks, one board member got up from his seat and left the meeting.

Three members of the Southampton County School Board walked out of the board’s May 12 meeting after a fourth board member insisted that a fifth member had not taken a proper oath of office. The board chair refused a suggestion to dismiss that member from the meeting until she could verify the allegation.

The Spotsylvania County School Board chair issued “an official first warning” to potential speakers during the public comment period, saying that anyone issued a second warning would be told to leave the meeting. The chair said the warning was necessary “due to increasing disruptive behaviors.”

The Patrick County Board of Supervisors voted to censure one of its members for his alleged repeated attempts to silence, harass, intimidate, bully, threaten and defame other members of the board. The censured member, Steve Marshall, said the vote was “meaningless, absolutely meaningless.” Later in the month, Marshall responded to the chair’s public apology that the board discussed a private matter during a closed session, saying he was skeptical of the chair’s commitment to transparency. Instead, he said the apology was a reaction to Marshall’s threat of legal action against the chair and “his coalition.”

Roanoke’s Equity and Empowerment Advisory Board met on May 1st amid growing scrutiny of equity efforts nationwide. Though information about the board has been replaced on the city website by an error message, members gathered at the local library, joined briefly by the mayor. One board member questioned how they could remain transparent “if we’re having to work in stealth mode.” The mayor acknowledged the tension but encouraged board members to keep going.

The Williamsburg-James City County school system released an unredacted copy of its survey about renaming a middle school. The redacted version was mistakenly released, the division said. Two entries that included racial slurs were obscured “because of profane language.”

Celebrate Virginia’s FOIA, found in the statute books at Section 2.2-3700.

If you know, you know!

Order your
magnet today.

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

P.O. Box 2576
Williamsburg VA  23187
540-353-8264
vcog@opengovva.org