Transparency News, 10/10/2022
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October 10, 2022
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state & local news stories
Pulaski County administrator Jonathan Sweet, as well other Pulaski County officials, have pointed out to Del. Marie March that she has yet to obtain all the permits required for all the uses they say have been both advertised and carried out at the venue. March eventually made public records requests, asking for Sweet’s expense reports over the past two years, his board appointments and an alleged conversation between the administrator and Pulaski County Supervisor Andy McCready regarding the barn. Sweet said he obliged as is required of him by freedom of information law. He said he had absolutely nothing to hide. The county didn’t produce the alleged conversation between Sweet and McCready as staff said the record doesn’t exist. Sweet said he viewed the records request as an attempt to intimidate him. He said a person connected to March had initially requested all emails the administrator had ever sent. He said he would have had to produce a whopping amount of documents. “We told him it was going to be very expensive to do, and he ended up backing off and condensed the request,” Sweet said. “This is what they do. She’s a bully.”
The Roanoke Times
editorials & columns
The conflict in Rocky Mount between a town council candidate and illustrates one of the darker sides of economic development — when a partnership between a municipality and a business turns contentious. Bane has made claims on the campaign trail that the etown council has held secret votes as part of a conspiracy to block the progress of his planned hotel at 325 Franklin St. Asserting that Bane’s accusation is untrue, town officials counter that Bane’s repeated violations of town regulations drove them to request that construction halt until the issues can be resolved. The evidence revealed so far through Molly Hunter’s investigation supports the town’s version of events, and led to the release of the three videos, one from the town security system and two from town employees. Voters in Rocky Mount should watch all three of these videos closely and reflect on whether a candidate capable of such behavior could possibly have a productive, positive relationship with the town employees he would be working with were he to be elected to office.
The Roanoke Times
“In this Aug. 12, 2017, file photo,” the caption reads, “a vehicle drives into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va.” The picture ran atop a story about a Furman University professor, Chris Healy, who the university recently suspended after a photograph surfaced showing him with white supremacists at the deadly 2017 hate fest that was the Unite the Right riot. Furman’s president, Elizabeth Davis, said in a statement that Healy will not be allowed to teach while the school investigates his involvement in the Charlottesville riot. White supremacist and neo-Nazi groups hoped to use the riot to trigger a race war, according to evidence in a civil lawsuit against the organizers. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has sent Furman a letter saying Healy should be reinstated immediately. But a FIRE spokeswoman told a South Carolina TV station that it did not represent Healy legally. In many ways, the Healy case resembles the saga of Allen Groat, a Charlottesville city employee who entered the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection by Donald Trump supporters who hoped to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The city has refused to discipline Groat, who trespassed on federal property in defiance of Capitol Police and no trespassing signs on the Capitol grounds. City officials maintain that their hands are tied because law enforcement has not charged Groat with a crime and the current personnel policy does not allow them to discipline or dismiss Groat. The Daily Progress awaits a copy of the policy under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. Groat clearly injured the city’s reputation by participating in an illegal attack. But, presumably, his status as a public employee protected him from being held accountable and city policies did not specifically prohibit behavior that injured the city.
The Daily Progress
