Summer may have faded into fall, but open government and transparency was still hot in September.

Localities grappled with transparency questions large and small: Smithfield considered changes to closed meeting procedures, Halifax residents again urged livestreaming, and disputes arose over public comment rules and meeting minutes. The FOIA Council supported a VCOG-backed bill limiting last-minute action on surprise agenda items and advanced work on defining “personal information,” while tabling discussion of “vexatious requesters.” The Supreme Court declined to review the case of the redacted police officer names.

In Richmond, a whistleblower lawsuit by the city’s former FOIA officer was postponed until 2026. The city council approved an ordinance requiring department-level budget requests to be public, but delayed a proposal to post FOIA requests and responses online. Meanwhile, Richmond Public Schools withheld a separation agreement tied to a $30,790 payout.

Read on for the full story, plus links to VCOG opinion columns and a big save-the-date announcement.

The FOIA Council took several actions at its Sept. 22 meeting that VCOG supported. The full council voted 10-2 to approve the VCOG-inspired bill that tries to limit final action on surprise agenda items. The council was presented with language to carve out so-called “advisory boards” from the rule, but that was rejected, as was a draft that included requirements on posting state agency 

 

meeting agendas. At the subcommittee level, the further study of “vexatious requesters” was tabled. The same subcommittee agreed to continue studying a definition for “personal information” that focuses on unique identifiers, but avoided including further study of a definition for “personnel information” at the same time. Links to all three meetings are archived on the House of Delegates website.

The Virginia Supreme Court declined to take up the appeal in the case between Alice Minium and Hanover Sheriff David Hines over access to the names of police officers. The Court of Appeals sided with Minium, represented by Andrew Bodoh, in February, rejecting Hines’ argument that 220 out of 245 officer names could be blacked out of a salary spreadsheet because the officers might be used in department undercover operations sometime in the future.

The Court of Appeals pointed to the “clear guidance” in the personnel exemption that no provision can serve to block the names in relation to salary, a point VCOG made in its amicus brief. The court also said conditions for use of undercover operations exemption weren’t met because to use it, the government has to show that revealing the names of officers “would reveal” details about the undercover operations: “Hypothetical future undercover operations, by their very nature as ‘hypothetical,’ are not yet a reality and consequently do not have ‘tactical plans,’ ‘staffing,’ or ‘logistics’ to be disclosed.”

Now, because the Supreme Court turned back the appeal, unless and until the General Assembly attempts to exempt police officer names, the Copurt of Appeals ruling is the law of the state.

In our opinion

Minutes aren’t just for busy citizens who missed the meeting. They inform future public bodies. They are the historical record.

FOIA may stand for “Freedom of Information Act,” but what else could it stand for? What would you add?

Opposition to a proposed FOIA Library doesn’t make sense when you consider that the records have already been released.

An Orange County Circuit Judge indicated that the county may have violated FOIA when it met to discuss the so-called Wilderness Crossing development without the public’s presence. The county argued the spring get-together was not a public meeting but was instead “a collaborative discussion group comprised of Thought-Leaders interested in local economic development success, especially in the Germanna Wilderness Area.” The judge said the meeting violated the rule against three or more members gathering to discuss public business.

A property owner upset that Prince William County did not approve a development proposal that he would have benefited from (by selling his land to the developer) sued the chair of the board of supervisors in federal district court, arguing that she violated his civil rights by holding town halls in an adjacent community to spread misinformation and drum up opposition.

The Richmond City Council passed an ordinance that will require City Hall to publish budget projections for each individual department and create a “side-by-side comparison” estimates with the mayor’s budget proposal. The mayor’s office opposed the proposal, warning it could lead to politicization of the budget process and second-guessing tough decisions.

A Richmond City Council committee postponed action on another proposed ordinance that would post information about all FOIA requests handled by the city, including the records provided in response to a request. The mayor’s office said it needed more time to review the proposal. It also said their office would need three full-time employees at a cost of at least $300,000 to review requests before posting them to the online library.

**READ VCOG’S BLOG POST ON THE PROPOSAL**

A Martinsville judge was considering whether to accept the late filing a police deputy made in response to a council member’s lawsuit claiming violations of his 1st, 4th and 14th amendment rights. The deputy contends that there is doubt whether one of the two videos of the council member’s ejection from a city council meeting fully and fairly depicts the events.

The Charlottesville police chief surprised locals when he debuted a proposed ordinance to deal with the city’s homeless population at a city council meeting. The chief said the ordinance had been in the works since April and was the product of so-called “two two one” meetings that avoid triggering FOIA’s meeting requirements. Advocates for the homeless claimed they were never consulted.

A pair of search warrants filed in Albemarle County revealed that the reason the county’s election officials pushed the registrar to resign is that she was suspected of using county-issued purchase cards for personal car rentals and to view YouTube videos.

In a room so full of spectators that the emergency services coordinator announced that some people would have to wait in the hall, Halifax citizens again urged the county to livestream their meetings. The county has resisted the call in the past, but one resident insisted that it could be done. “If school boards can do it, churches can do it, the federal government can do it, the state can do it, then so can you.”

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) sued Virginia Tech over its refusal to provide them with records related to experiments that resulted in the deaths of four mini pigs. The university claims the records are related to research that has not been publicly released or published, but PETA argues the information has been released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch, following up on assertions by the governor that Virginia’s Standards of Learning tests were 30% to 40% harder this year than last year, filed a FOIA request with the Department of Education and was told, “There are no records from [the contractor] saying the tests were 30-40% harder.”

Purcellville’s mayor included an item on the Sept. 9 agenda that clamped down on public comments by proposing a ban on “comments targeting or criticizing individual Town employees, Council Members, or private citizens.” He said the proposal “parallels” one in Loudoun County, but county board of supervisors’ chair, Phyllis Randall said public criticism is something elected officials sign up for, even when it is uncomfortable.

The University of Virginia student-run newspaper, The Cavalier Daily, questioned whether the Board of Visitors’ September board member violated FOIA by holding its meetings in a place that did not fairly accommodate expected attendance. Students, faculty and members of the public were unable to enter the Rotunda, where the BOV has held its meetings for decades, but which can handle only 60 people, including board members and staff.

The Smithfield Town Council considered a new closed meeting procedure whereby the town manager or town attorney would identify items they think should be discussed in closed session, the council would go into closed session to go over the list — approving or disapproving of each item — then coming back out to make necessary motions on the remaining items.

After The Smithfield Times‘ review of invoices revealed that the town attorney had been billing the town at a higher rate than what was stated in his contract, an outside firm negotiated a new rate for the parties. Soon after, however, the town attorney resigned, submitting a resignation letter saying, “The notion that I overcharged the town since 2008 is absurd and your decision to audit my billings since then is a waste of town resources.” 

The Suffolk Public School Board debated the meetings of its August meeting at its meeting in September. Comments made by one of the board members were not included, comments that were made in connection with a tense exchange between him and another member. The board agreed to include his comments verbatim, “through the end of all available audio recording of the meeting,” noting that the audio feed was disconnected before the meeting finished speaking.

** READ VCOG’S BLOG POST ON MEETING MINUTES **

The Southampton County Planning Commission agreed over minutes of past meetings dating back to March. The county’s community development and planning director issued a letter identifying what he said were “significant differences” between the meetings presented to the planning commission and those presented to the public. The commission chair said his understanding was that the differences were accounted for because of formatting, but he also said, “I know what the word ‘format’ means, but I don’t understand why they had to be slightly altered, certain words, to meet the format.” The director did not attend the meeting, so the commission deferred further action.

Ten months after being asked by the Southampton County School Board chair to provide a regular report on the volume of FOIA requests received by the school division from the previous month, the superintendent provided numbers for the 2024-25 fiscal year at the board’s September meeting. She handed the report to board members, but it was not posted on the division’s website as agenda materials. In response to a question about the employee time taken up by the requests, the superintendent first said she would get back with that number, then said, “I know roughly it’s cost the division about $10,000.”

Records revealed that Richmond Public Schools paid its former auditor $30,790 when he departed last spring, but the division continues to keep quiet about what happened. The division denied The Richmonder’s FOIA request for the underlying separation agreement.

All but one of the Rich Creek town council members, plus its mayor, resigned, saying “the work of public service has been consistently undermined by those more focused on personal power than public good.” Once council member added that her oath of office did not include “an oath to be cussed to.”

Ten months after being asked by the Southampton County School Board chair to provide a regular report on the volume of FOIA requests received by the school division from the previous month, the superintendent provided numbers for the 2024-25 fiscal year at the board’s September meeting. She handed the report to board members, but it was not posted on the division’s website as agenda materials. In response to a question about the employee time taken up by the requests, the superintendent first said she would get back with that number, then said, “I know roughly it’s cost the division about $10,000.”

A reporter covering Norfolk Public Schools’ on-again, off-again plans to shutter several city schools encountered interesting responses to his FOIA request. When he asked for an email sent by a city council member to the school district, the district originally claimed it had no such message, nor one from the city’s mayor. When the reporter showed them a copy of the email he obtained from a source, a school district representative said they would go back to look and eventually provided it.

The trial in the whistleblower lawsuit between the City of Richmond’s former FOIA officer and the city was only a week away when a judge ordered it postponed until June 2026. The ruling came after more wrangling between the sides’ two lawyers, with the judge faulting both sides.

Earlier in the month, Clay’s attorney complained that Clay’s former boss walked out of the second day of a two-day court-ordered deposition. Two other city employees did not show up for their depositions. 

Shortly after the trial’s postponement, the city said for the first time that the phone it had given the judge to review (to determine if all relevant text messages had been provided) was not the phone Clay’s former boss used during the relevant period. That phone, the city’s lawyer said, was lost in a New York airport.

The city has spent more than $234,000 defending the lawsuit, but that’s only through May. The city’s attorney has not sent an invoice to the city since then, blaming the problem on a technical issue at his law firm.

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