Transparency News 10/26/15

State and Local Stories

Two candidates running for the tiebreaker position for the Halifax County Board of Supervisors have different views on the function of the position, and they came to light Tuesday during a candidates forum at The Prizery. Wade said he viewed the tiebreaker position as simply that, someone who would vote on ties. Bednarz said he also plans on attending all the supervisors meetings but wants a more inclusive role in county government. “You have to have access to all the information, including all the back door deals that are going on.”
Gazette-Virginian

Richmond city officials stung by a string of financial problems and turmoil say they will eventually plan to bring in an external firm to review the books for indications of fraud or theft. The decision about whether to conduct a limited review or a full-blown forensic audit will not come until after the city finalizes a financial report due to the state Nov. 30, according to Lenora Reid, Richmond’s deputy chief of finance and administration. “It would be an independent audit,” said Reid, who came to Richmond from the city of Suffolk in July. “For any audit or review for someone to attest to something, they would have to have independence.” City Auditor Umesh Dalal pushed officials for a forensic audit last month after releasing an examination of about $2 billion in city transactions that identified a significant lack of internal controls. But Walter Kucharski, a citizen member of the audit committee who is the former head of the state’s watchdog agency, questions whether a forensic audit is needed if there’s no suspicion that any laws have been broken.
Richmond Times-Dispatch


National Stories
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The UNC Board of Governors has been called to an emergency meeting Friday to get an update on the UNC presidential search and to talk with leading candidate Margaret Spellings, the former U.S. education secretary in George W. Bush’s administration, according to three people with direct knowledge of the search. The meeting has touched off a storm with leaders in the legislature, who wrote to board members Thursday, saying that the gathering could run afoul of new legislation that requires the search committee to bring forward three candidates to the full board for discussion. That bill passed the legislature late last month but has not been signed into law by Gov. Pat McCrory. “While the bill has not yet been signed by the Governor, calling an emergency meeting to discuss only one candidate could be viewed as the Board’s attempt to circumvent the overwhelming will of the elected people of the State of North Carolina prior to the bill becoming law,” said the letter, signed by Republican Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger and Republican House Speaker Tim Moore. “Our concern is not about any candidate for the presidency but rather the process by which at least a few members of the Board have utilized that appears to cut against the fundamental notions of transparency and procedural due process.” In email responses regarding the emergency meeting, some members were concerned that there was insufficient notice for the event. Some were out of town and could not attend.
News & Observer

In a 10th-floor meeting room in Crystal City, Malynda Chizek Frouard rode a red Capital Bikeshare bike to the front of the room as about 60 fellow techies and transportation buffs watched. She had come to share her new Web site, CaBiBrags.com, which allows Capital Bikeshare users to compete for the highest mileage. “I’m pretty sure I win the ‘Queen of the Nerds’ award tonight!” said Chizek Frouard, 31, a resident of Bethesda, pointing to the bright-blue astronaut costume she’d worn in the pre-Halloween spirit. It was the ideal place to embrace one’s inner geek. After all, Chizek Frouard’s audience was the Transportation Techies — a group of computer coders, urban planners, graduate students and self-described transportation nerds from across the Washington region. Members gather at monthly “hack nights” to eat pizza, drink beer and share cool ways they’ve used government data to better estimate Metro train arrivals, find the closest parking space, plot the fastest walking routes and predict when busy Bikeshare stations will run out of bikes.
Washington Post

A new bill set to be presented at the next legislative session in Maryland's state house aims for more transparency when it comes to law enforcement militarization according to it's sponsor, Sen Bryan Simontaire (R) D-31. Simontaire said he started looking into the program that supplies military equipment to local police departments and sheriff's offices after the events in Ferguson and Baltimore. If his proposal is approved, law enforcement would have to alert both the chairmen of the Maryland House and Senate within 15 days when military equipment is requested in their jurisdictions. "You know when you start getting mine resistant vehicles and potentially weaponized aircraft or other vehicles and military equipment such as grenade launchers that should raise a flag," Simontaire said. According to Simontaire, his bill is about transparency and would not allow legislators to shoot down a request for military equipment.
WMDT

The nation's charter schools largely are created, overseen and policed by pro-charter advocates, resulting in "an epidemic of fraud, waste, and mismanagement that would not be tolerated in [traditional] public schools," according to the Center for Media and Democracy. A report released Wednesday shows that taxpayers lack access to key information about how state and federal dollars are used to fuel charter school growth. The Wisconsin-based advocacy organization created the report based on charter school data collected from 12 states and the federal government. In many cases, data was incomplete or agencies failed to comply with requests for records, according to the report. Emails from the Utah State Office of Education were obtained by researchers, showing enrollment fluctuations at charter schools beyond state guidelines and pushback against a state law prohibiting schools from outsourcing students' private records to third parties.
Salt Lake Tribune

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by Wikimedia and other groups challenging one of the U.S. National Security Agency's mass surveillance programs, the Baltimore Sun reported. The newspaper said Judge T.S. Ellis III on Friday dismissed the suit filed in March over what is often called "upstream" collection because it happens along the so-called backbone of the Internet and away from individual users. The lawsuit filed in federal court in Maryland, where the spy agency is based, said the NSA is violating U.S. constitutional protections and the law by tapping into high-capacity cables, switches and routers that move Internet traffic through the United States.
Reuters

Editorials/Columns

Getting caught with some pot isn’t the only mistake here, though. Here’s how it sure looks: Roanoke City Council member Court Rosen skipped out of a council meeting so he could go get high. Umm, that’s not good. Let’s assume he really was going on to work afterwards. How long does it take to puff some weed? Five minutes maybe? So if he hadn’t felt the need to toke up, perhaps Roanokers would have gotten five more minutes of public service out of him. Maybe that doesn’t matter, but it still doesn’t look good — to cut out of your public duties to go break the law. In broad daylight — just after noon on a Tuesday, in a K-mart parking lot, no less. There are other mistakes here, too. Has he ever gotten high before a council meeting? How about before a meeting of the state transportation board, where he’s a gubernatorial appointee?
Roanoke Times

Women, sexual assault victims, people of color, transgender students — college campuses have created “safe spaces” for all sorts of marginalized groups. But in the process, one member of the campus community has lost precious real estate. Free speech. There have of course been complaints about censorship and political correctness on the nation’s campuses for a while now. High-profile speakers — Christine Lagarde, Condoleezza Rice — have been disinvited from or otherwise pushed out of commencement addresses, thanks to students who didn’t want to hear what they had to say. Comedians have sworn off performing at colleges because they say students can’t take a joke. Even President Obama has decried illiberal tendencies in liberal arts settings, fretting that college students are “coddled and protected from different points of view.” These threats to free speech peaked last week at Wesleyan University, a top-flight school in Middletown, Conn., where the student government voted to cut funding for the 150-year-old campus newspaper after it published a conservative op/ed.
Catherine Rampell, Richmond Times-Dispatch

The 10th “Sunshine Week” ended about six month ago, on March 21. This annual celebration of open government was created by the American Society of News Editors with a grant from the John L. and James S. Knight Foundation. Now co-sponsored by ASNE and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Sunshine Week is intended to highlight the importance of open government around the country. All indications pointed to the fact that this year’s Sunshine Week was one of the best yet. In Washington, D.C., and throughout the country, people found new and innovative ways to make people think about transparency (my personal favorite was the brewing of “Sunshine Wheat” beer — the first beer of Sunshine Week). Fantastic. But now seven months down the line, what has been the net effect?
Kevin Goldberg, Midland Daily News