When Westmoreland County held its public meetings in a courtroom, the local judge there refused to let cameras in, despite the fact that FOIA says meetings can be recorded. VCOG contacted Del. Albert Pollard about the problem, and though he didn’t directly intervene (Sen. Richard Stuart did), he did make good on his promise to introduce legislation to specifically state that meetings can’t be held in places where recording is prohibited. That measure passed without opposition.
Another bill that’s good for transparency is one that further tweaks and refines the way Commonwealth DataPoint presents the numbers of the state budget. A bill last year improved things some, and this bill improves things some more, but there is still a long way to go. Also, a portion of the bill that would have required publication of individual salaries was shot down.
Thanks to some good teamwork by VCOG in identifying the motivation behind a particular bill provision, and the Virginia Press Association for figuring how to properly address it, FOIA will now specify that when an agency transfers its records to VITA, the Library of Virginia, or some other public entity for storage, those records remain in the control of the transferring agency. That is, the agency can’t respond to a FOIA request for those records by saying, “Sorry, we don’t have the records; they’re at VITA.” Similarly, VITA won’t have to answer FOIA requests for agency records it has no substantive knowledge of.
VPA also worked with State Police to amend the definition of criminal incident information contained in the same bill, hopefully paving the way for a uniform system and application of the definition by the state’s police departments.
Three bills recommended by the FOIA Council will become law:
- An exemption for financial account numbers;
- A clarification about in whose name a FOIA lawsuit can be filed, as well as a clarification that a winning plaintiff may recover fees for an expert witness; and
- A measure that survived challenge from two other bills to change existing law from prohibiting collection of SSNs unless (i) authorized or required by state or federal law and (ii) essential for the performance of that agency’s duties, to (i) authorized or required by state or federal law or (ii) essential for the performance of that agency’s duties.