Four and a half months after Gordonsville’s chief of police, Chris Votaw, signed a contract that took a news report to become public knowledge, almost no one in town government can say with certainty what the 287(g) program is or isn’t doing, including the mayor. And interviews show that the Gordonsville police department’s cooperation with federal immigration agents is based largely on relationships and private meetings that are not documented in writing or available to the public. How Gordonsville’s contract came to be, and how officials lost track of the program amidst an ongoing federal lawsuit, is a case study in the transparency issues that have arisen in localities with 287(g) agreements across the nation. …. On May 18, a day after the contract was finalized, Votaw and Town Manager Anthony Schienschang met with Town Council in a closed session to discuss it. Schienschang told Charlotteville Tomorrow that the meeting took place under the personnel exemption of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (VFOIA) for closed meetings, Section § 2.2-3711 (A)(1) of the Code of Virginia, which allows for discussion of specific employees, including hirings, performance and salaries. But Mayor Brooks described the session as a broader discussion of the agreement, and Town Council members said they didn’t recall any individual employees being discussed. Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, said the (A)(1) exemption isn’t meant to be applied broadly.

Richmond city officials are immediately suspending negotiations with a solar power company in response to questions from The Times-Dispatch regarding an individual who worked for both City Hall and the company during those negotiations. According to a public LinkedIn profile as well as city and company documents, Andre Eanes, who served as a part-time staffer in the city’s Office of Sustainability from January to September, also worked as a part-time technical consultant for Secure Solar Futures between October 2025 and September, meaning his employment with both entities overlapped by about nine months. … In a statement, Mayor Danny Avula said the city was immediately halting talks with Secure Solar Futures while they reviewed the matter.

The Town of Herndon has parted ways with its top executive less than a year into his tenure. The Herndon Town Council voted in a closed meeting on Tuesday (Sept. 29) to “end the employment of Town Manager Dan Hoffman, effective immediately,” the town announced on its Facebook page yesterday afternoon (Thursday). … The council’s vote to dismiss Hoffman was unanimous, a source familiar with the situation told FFXnow. The decision came in response to behavior that wasn’t violent or criminal in nature, but still fell short of the professional standards expected of the town manager, the source said.

NOTE: As of this morning, the town’s website does not include any video or minutes of this meeting. Any vote to terminate the manager is supposed to take place in public.

A Chesterfield County Police Department employee has been arrested for misusing the county’s Automatic License Plate Reader System contracted through Flock Safety — which has made headlines throughout 2026 following privacy concerns and questions over the security of its data. A county press release didn’t provide details about the misuse. A police department spokesperson said they wouldn’t discuss an ongoing case. According to a county press release, Robinson’s colleagues expressed concerns about her behavior to department leadership on Aug. 27. An ensuing audit uncovered suspicious enough activity to warrant her being placed on administrative leave without pay. “We remain committed to transparency and will provide additional information as allowed by law once the internal investigation is completed,” the release reads.

The town of Thomaston (Connecticut) has nearly $150,000 on legal fees related to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and complaints filed by resident Nancy Griswold. Griswold has won most of those complaints. Invoices shared with Inside Investigator show monthly charges stretching back to 2021 related to FOIA requests filed by Griswold, complaints filed with the Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC), and an attempt to label Griswold as a vexatious requester totaling roughly $148,000. … Griswold has won a series of FOIC complaints against the town, many related to improperly convened executive sessions and other failures to follow FOIA’s open meeting requirements. In 2023, the FOIC declined to grant the town’s petition to have Griswold and her son labelled as vexatious requesters.

A federal judge on Wednesday ruled the Trump administration must turn over a Department of Justice (DOJ) memo that legally authorizes the Pentagon’s lethal boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific. U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer rejected two of the administration’s three arguments to keep the document secret in a 66-page opinion, requiring that the government submit the memo within two weeks for his confidential review. … The memo from the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel is reportedly more than 40 pages long, according to The New York Times, and addressed the legal standards justifying these strikes.

It’s that time again, when I use the Freedom of Information Act to uncover a former US attorney general’s secret email address. To refresh your memory, in the March 7, 2025 edition of the newsletter, I discussed one of my offbeat FOIA side projects: requesting the email aliases used by the nation’s top law enforcement official to conduct government business. It’s a practice at the Justice Department that dates back more than a decade and, according to the agency, is intended to guard against security threats to the person holding the job. I’ve obtained the secret email address for every person to hold the position from Eric Holder to Merrick Garland. Now, I can add Pam Bondi to the list.