Transparency News 10/13/14

Monday, October 13, 2014  

State and Local Stories

A compilation of court records from Virginia's court system that, among other things, shows patterns in plea deals and sentencing and delays between criminal incidents, arrests and prosecution is now being held secret by the office that administers the state's court system. The data had been routinely released for several years. But the Office of the Executive Secretary of the Virginia court system is reviewing its policy about access to the record, spokeswoman Kristi S. Wright said this summer, explaining the court system's stance after several months of ignored requests for the record from the Daily Press. The office believes the record is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, she said in repeated exchanges about a formal, written request for the record.
Daily Press

The son of a former Virginia state senator has told federal investigators that U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner discussed the possibility of several jobs, including a federal judgeship, for the senator’s daughter in an effort to dissuade him from quitting the evenly divided state Senate. Warner was part of a string of high-powered Virginia Democrats who in early June pressed then-state senator Phillip P. Puckett not to go through with plans to give up his seat in the middle of a bitterly partisan battle over health care. A Warner spokesman acknowledged Friday that the conversation occurred, but he emphasized that the senator had made no explicit job offer.
Washington Post

The Martinsville School Board will have a special closed-door meeting Oct. 21 when it likely will discuss a letter from Liberty Counsel concerning the board’s denial of a local pastor’s request that Gideons Bibles be distributed in city schools. Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit law firm, is asking the board to approve the request by Pastor Bill Moss of Hill Memorial Baptist Church to distribute the Bibles. School board member Dr. Craig Dietrich said Friday the meeting is being called for the sole purpose of discussing the Liberty Counsel letter. “The meeting is with legal counsel — to see what our options are, what our liabilities are. I wouldn’t expect we would make a decision right then,” he said.
Martinsville Bulletin

A federal jury in Harrisonburg on Friday found the Front Royal Volunteer Fire and Rescue Departmentdid not violate the free speech rights of two volunteer firefighters when it suspended one and stripped the other of his department membership. The plaintiffs, David Ellinger and Philip Charles, filed a lawsuit accusing the department of suspending Ellinger and permanently barring Charles in response to their criticism of several decisions affecting equipment and fire company revenue. The seven-member jury returned its verdict at about 4 p.m. after 21 hours of deliberations and a four-day trial. The jury found there was not enough evidence to support the claim that criticism from Charles or Ellinger was "a substantial or motivating factor" in the disciplinary actions taken against them by the department.
Northern Virginia Daily

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-- Louise Seals, Richmond

 

National Stories

The Clinton Presidential Library on Friday released 10,000 pages of previously undisclosed documents that involved a series of touchy subjects from the 42nd president’s time in the White House. They cover the gamut of scandals – some big, some small – that dogged former President Bill Clinton’s presidency: from Monica Lewinsky to Whitewater, from the death of former White House Counsel Vince Foster to the pardon of financier Marc Rich, and the controversy over staffing of the White House Travel Office, known as Travelgate, as well.
McClatchy

Federal prosecutors hinted Friday that they still intend to subpoena a New York Times reporter to testify in a case against a former CIA agent — a move that could put them in the position of advocating for penalties against a journalist for doing his job. Assistant U.S. Attorney James Trump said in court that the “prosecutors’ end” of the subpoena process was “nearly complete” but that they still needed to comply with new Justice Department guidelines governing investigations involving the news media. He said those guidelines require approval from the director of national intelligence and the attorney general before such cases can proceed — a process that he estimated would take “a few weeks.”
Washington Post

Too many public entities are violating Missouriís open-government laws by meeting in closed sessions without giving a good reason or by discussing things behind closed doors that they shouldnít be, the state auditor said Tuesday. Auditor Tom Schweich said about 15 percent of the nearly 300 audits he conducted over the previous two years found some sort of violation of Missouri's open-meetings-and-records laws. Thatís an improvement from the 19 percent problem rate for Sunshine law compliance during audits conducted in 2010 and 2011, he said. 'Maybe things are getting a little better,' Schweich said. But he added: 'Thatís not to say I'm happy with the fact that so many entities are still not complying.'
Kansas City Star

Editorials/Columns

Journalists seeking records from Ferguson, Mo., were told they needed to come up with more than $2,000 to see files related to the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. Under Missouri law, the town is obligated to make such information available at no charge when doing so is in the public’s interest. The problem is, the laws allow that judgment call to be based on the bureaucrat’s interest. Thus, town officials hired a consulting firm at a cost of $135 an hour to retrieve relevant emails in response to a request from The Associated Press. It was basically a cut-and-paste job that a city bureaucrat could have readily handled, but the pricy firm billed 16 hours of labor. EPB, the taxpayer-owned electric utility in Chattanooga, Tenn., shocked a college student by telling him the cost of just looking at basic records would be $1,767. Tennessee’s Office of Open Records Counsel was on the student’s side, telling utility officials they “should not have assessed (the) fees,” but EPB did anyway. An outside group picked up the tab so that the student could go to the office to see the documents. He was then told that he would have to pay an additional $2,070 to look at them a second time. The records provided evidence that the electric company attempted to bully local media not to report on issues that reflected negatively on the utility. Similar incidents play out all across the nation.
Washington Times

On Oct. 9, Zachary Reid reported: “Richmond school officials are conducting an intensive internal investigation of student records after a School Board member shared confidential information about at least 20 students with a vendor that provides mental health services.” Student privacy rates as an absolute. Students and their families are betrayed when information is released to outside sources. Indeed, members of school boards should not have ready access to individual records. The public needs to learn more. School employees who might be involved have violated the trust placed in them — and must face the consequences. A board rebuke of Eppes remains a possibility.
Times-Dispatch

A Richmond-area circuit judge did not elaborate on her sudden decision to retire after her daughter was appointed prosecutor in the same jurisdiction, and a court spokesman said officials “don’t believe” that the retirement is related to the appointment. Still, the unexpected resignation points up two ongoing issues for all of Virginia: » The care officials must take to avoid conflict of interest, or even the appearance of conflict. » The state’s shortage of judges, tracing to the legislature’s inability to fill vacancies.
Daily Progress

The saying “better late than never” best describes briefings that state senators had with FBI officials on federal corruption laws after former Gov. Bob McDonnell was convicted of violating those laws. We suspect most Virginians assumed that their legislators had become familiar with these laws — state and federal — the day they took office, if not sooner.  Obviously, that has not happened. But it should now. State and federal officials should join forces to hold mandatory training sessions for all newly elected legislators to ensure that they know the laws that govern their actions from Day One. It is for their protection and the public’s.
Martinsville Bulletin

The fact that both political parties play games with the district lines doesn’t make it right. In fact, it’s one of the most corrosive aspects of our political system. Drawing legislative district boundaries to favor one political party over the other isn’t new, and it leads to the coarsening of our civic culture as legislators placed in no-lose districts can toe the party line — and not worry about a challenger. That, in turn, leads to the kind of legislative gridlock we see in the halls of power. If a politician is sheltered from the voters, he only has to answer to the people who put him in office — the guys who draw the legislative districts boundaries.
Register & Bee