Transparency News 10/14/15

State and Local Stories

The National Freedom of Information Coalitiontoday announced its 2016 officers and new board members during the 2015 FOI Summitin Denver. The new officers include:
Mal Leary, President  (vice president, Maine Freedom of Information Coalition)
Katherine Garner, Vice President (executive director Florida First Amendment Foundation)
Mark Horvit, Treasurer (executive director, Investigative Reporters and Editors)
Megan Rhyne, Secretary (executive director, Virginia Coalition for Open Government)
NFOIC

Halifax County Administrator Jim Halasz, responding to last week’s demand by four supervisors for his termination, was circumspect in addressing the most recent complaint by his critics: that he leaked confidential information from a closed board session to discuss the status of a county employee. While not legally required to take place behind closed doors, personnel matters typically are conducted in private, under an exemption set forth in the state’s open government law. The Sept. 8 conversation among board members concerned the naming of an emergency services coordinator, a position filled by Chad Loftis on an interim basis following the June 2014 departure of Kirby Saunders. Loftis has applied for the permanent position; the board has not announced a hire. Halasz has been accused of inappropriately passing on board member discussions to Loftis, the contents of which subsequently seeped out in public. When asked about the accusation, Halasz noted that the only information he conveyed was about the employee in question, directly to him, and only his confidentiality rights were at stake — not the supervisors’.  “I think you have to look at what confidential means. We were in closed session for personnel, and the reason we go in closed session for personnel is to protect the person and their privacy rights ….. “It’s the employee whose individual rights are being held confidential. So the employee who is the subject of that closed session sought information about [his status] in confidence, information that was only about them, I shared that information,” said Halasz.
SoVaNow


National Stories
​
The Michigan Supreme Court will hear arguments on its opening day about whether Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act applies to a fund that was created by the Legislature, but operated by auto insurance companies.  The Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association was created by an act of the Legislature, but it’s run by insurance companies. It’s funded through a fee on people who buy auto insurance. A group of doctors, hospitals, trial lawyers, unions, and policyholders has been trying for years to pry more information out of the MCCA. It says the information would be useful to policyholders, and the victims of catastrophic accidents whose care is financed by the fund, which is over $18 billion dollars.
Michigan Public Radio

Tennessee officials mulling over the privatization of operations at state buildings, college campuses, prisons and armories are being discouraged from putting their thoughts into emails. Terry Cowles, who is in charge of Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's office of Strategies for Efficiency in Real Estate Management, or SEREM, told reporters Tuesday that the group "put that control in place" to prevent the release of what he called premature or incorrect information. "We want to provide you all and the public with as much information as we can, but we have to have some opportunity to make sure in fact that what we're providing is the right information," he said. Records obtained by WTVF-TV in Nashville last month included a timetable for outsourcing state facilities that appeared at odds with the governor's public assertion that any decision on whether even to proceed with privatization was still months away.
Herald Courier

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office was more involved in a $20.5 million school contract with a now-indicted consultant than previously disclosed, public records indicate, but his administration has refused to release hundreds of emails that could provide a deeper understanding of how the deal came to be. Emanuel and his aides have maintained that the mayor's office had nothing to do with the contract to provide leadership training for principals that is at the center of a federal bribery indictment against ex-schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett and the consulting firm where she once worked.  When asked in April if his administration had any role at all in the SUPES contract, Emanuel told reporters, "No, you obviously know that by all the information available. And so the answer to that is no." Yet the mayor's office and schools officials have been in an ongoing struggle with the Tribune over reporters' public records requests that could bear directly on the controversy, withholding many emails for months before releasing them, several so heavily redacted that little more than the subject line and addresses remain.
Governing


Editorials/Columns

Considering Virginia's checkered approach to issues of openness and transparency, we probably should have expected that redrawing the 3rd Congressional District would be a process shrouded in secrecy. But the requirements included in a federal court order governing the participants in that effort, even by the commonwealth's standards, are astounding. This dispute over confidentiality comes on the heels of another argument in the case involving the amount of scrutiny due this process. Last month, lawyers representing the 3rd District voters objected to allowing the DLS to post redistricting maps proposed as part of the lawsuit. Their petition to the court called posting the maps "ill-advised and inappropriate." Frankly, we find it ill-advised and inappropriate that anyone involved in this dispute would stand in the way of transparency. Citizens will be divided into congressional districts, among the most important exercises in a democracy, and the decisions being made deserve public scrutiny.
Daily Press

Even as Hillary Clinton is losing ground in her campaign for president, a devastating report has been released confirming just how insecure were her emails and Internet server while she was secretary of state. Ms. Clinton is no political rookie. But her baffling decision to maintain an unsafe server at her home for personal and professional use while secretary of state has all the hallmarks of a bumbling rookie mistake. Either that, or it was the act of someone with a distorted sense of invulnerability, too insulated from reality to understand risks. Or … it was the act of someone too arrogant to heed warnings of risk, if indeed her staff were brave enough to challenge her on this issue.
Daily Progress