Transparency News 10/28/16
Friday, October 28, 2016
State and Local Stories
The Newport News City Council — and the public — will now be able to see completed work session presentations thanks to a request from Councilwoman Saundra Cherry this week. At Tuesday's work session, Cherry asked why council members don't get work session documents and presentations ahead of time. An agenda is provided to the public, but specific documents are not available as they are for City Council meetings. Her question came after a presentation of the proposed capital improvements plan, which had $577.8 million worth of proposed projects over the next five years. "Because then you'll read about it in the paper first," said City Manager Jim Bourey. Cherry said she didn't care about the newspaper, but was "asking for my benefit to be better prepared." She used Tuesday's capital plan presentation as an example of something she wished she could study beforehand.
Daily Press
Unrest continued this week at the State Inspector General's office when a long-time employee told a General Assembly committee that mentions of employee-exhausting overtime hours worked by staff at Eastern State Hospital were lifted from reviews by a former hospital employee. The issue was also left out of OSIG's report on the death of Jamycheal Mitchell, who wasted away at the Hampton Roads Regional Jail while a fax transferring him to Eastern State sat forgotten in a hospital drawer.A Daily Press request made late Wednesday for Hill's initial drafts of these OSIG reports had not been filled or denied as of Thursday evening. In the past the Inspector General's office, which reviews various state agency operations, has withheld drafts and other case file records under an exemption in the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.
Daily Press
Augusta County supervisors agreed by a board "poll" — not a public vote — to spend more than $8,800 to reprint and mail a brochure explaining the November courthouse referendum to 33,000 county households this week. Candy Hensley, an assistant to County Administrator Tim Fitzgerald, said the reprinting and mailing of the brochure cost approximately $8,839. Board of Supervisors Chair Carolyn Bragg said county supervisors decided in a poll during the past couple of weeks that the mailing was necessary. Not all county voters were being reached through a series of town halls, courthouse tours of the current courthouse in Staunton, or through print media or television news reports about the referendum, Bragg claimed. Generally, public officials must hold a public vote when expending large sums of money that are not already included in an annual budget, for instance, though there are exceptions. A decision made through a private "poll" of supervisors would not constitute a public vote, of course, but it could not be determined Thursday if the details and amount of funds in this case represent a clear violation of the Freedom of Information Act.
News Virginian
Following a lengthy and heated discussion at last week’s school board retreat, the Amherst County School Board decided to revisit the Pleasant View Elementary School closure vote at its November meeting. At the Nov. 10 meeting the board will vote whether to reaffirm or rescind a previous board’s decision to close PVES at the end of this school year. The board has said the vote will be the final decision before the issue is laid to rest, whichever way the vote falls. Board Member Jennifer Cumby said her position on the school has “always been clear,” reminding the board that she was “very vocal” in her opposition to close PVES but the issue needs to be settled. She added that when a person is a board member, there are a lot of issues that need attention, and things can’t be stopped for too long or they start piling up. “…This is where we are right now,” Cumby said. “And I think being on the board, as opposed to being an observer, even a very avid one, it’s a very different situation because I might have my one issue … my own community and I have my own point of view, but when you’re at the table, you don’t just have two or three plates spinning … and they all have to keep going …”
New Era-Progress
Fairfax County School Board member Elizabeth Schultz (Springfield), a vocal conservative, has never been shy about sharing her views in the heavily Democratic county. She opposed regulations that would affirm the right of transgender students to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity, has spoken out against levying a meals tax that would generate millions of dollars for the school system and has criticized the board’s move to rename a high school that bears the name of a Confederate general. Schultz has for years been a champion of conservative causes — part of a small minority on the liberal school board in Northern Virginia — but it has been her support for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign that has drawn particular ire from some members of the community. Sue Langley, chair of the Fairfax County Democratic Committee, recently called for Schultz to resign from the board after she posted tweets related to Trump that Langley found threatening and offensive. Schultz said the fact that the head of the local Democratic Party called for her resignation because of tweets “sent a chill down my spine.”
Washington Post
National Stories
A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the U.S. Congress asked the Justice Department to clarify how a looming rule change to the government’s hacking powers could impact privacy rights of innocent Americans. The change, due to take place on December 1, would let judges issue search warrants for remote access to computers located in any jurisdiction, potentially including foreign countries.
Reuters
Mylan NV's price hikes on EpiPens have added millions to U.S. Department of Defense spending since 2008 as the agency covered more prescriptions for the lifesaving allergy shot at near retail prices, government data provided to Reuters shows. Pentagon spending rose to $57 million over the past year from $9 million in 2008 - an increase driven both by volume and by price hikes that had a bigger bite on prescriptions filled at retail pharmacies, according to the previously unreported data.
Reuters
Editorials/Columns
Petersburg officials did the right thing when they turned to a consulting group headed by Robert Bobb, a former city manager of Richmond, to help the city set itself right. But they sure went about it the wrong way. As K. Burnell Evans reported in this newspaper, the Petersburg City Council voted on hiring the Robert Bobb Group twice. The first vote was 3-3-1. The council’s rules require that it wait 30 days before reconsidering a proposal. Yet only two days later, the council voted again. The second vote came down 4-1 in favor. The city’s charter requires the number of council members present for an emergency re-vote be at least equal to the number of those present for the original vote. Little, if any, of this might have come to light were it not for the tenacious scrutiny of The Times-Dispatch. Our newsroom has shone a light on the facts. What the citizens of Petersburg do with the information is up to them.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Ballot selfies first became an issue in 2014, when New Hampshire banned them — on the theory that the ballot is so secret that not even the voter should be able to share a copy of how he or she voted. That fall, one New Hampshire voter unhappy with his choices for the U.S. Senate, posted a photo showing he voted for his dog instead. (For good measure, the dog was deceased at the time.) The state attorney general’s office started investigating; the voter fought back by suing the state — and a federal judge ruled that the state’s ban on “ballot selfies” constituted an infringement on voters’ free speech rights. Ballot selfies became a really big deal, though, last year in Canada — which banned such photos in its national election, and saw lots of Canadians openly flout the ban. Now it’s 2016 and even Snapchat has gotten involved. New Hampshire is appealing the judge’s ruling. The Snapchat messaging service has filed a brief in the New Hampshire case, arguing that ballot selfies are “simply the latest way that voters, especially young voters, engage with the political process and show their civic pride.” Ballot selfies may be silly. Ballot selfies may be an act of civic pride. But to suggest that ballot selfies are a vehicle to validate vote-buying is to not understand the zeitgeist.
Roanoke Times
Daily Press
Unrest continued this week at the State Inspector General's office when a long-time employee told a General Assembly committee that mentions of employee-exhausting overtime hours worked by staff at Eastern State Hospital were lifted from reviews by a former hospital employee. The issue was also left out of OSIG's report on the death of Jamycheal Mitchell, who wasted away at the Hampton Roads Regional Jail while a fax transferring him to Eastern State sat forgotten in a hospital drawer.A Daily Press request made late Wednesday for Hill's initial drafts of these OSIG reports had not been filled or denied as of Thursday evening. In the past the Inspector General's office, which reviews various state agency operations, has withheld drafts and other case file records under an exemption in the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.
Daily Press
Augusta County supervisors agreed by a board "poll" — not a public vote — to spend more than $8,800 to reprint and mail a brochure explaining the November courthouse referendum to 33,000 county households this week. Candy Hensley, an assistant to County Administrator Tim Fitzgerald, said the reprinting and mailing of the brochure cost approximately $8,839. Board of Supervisors Chair Carolyn Bragg said county supervisors decided in a poll during the past couple of weeks that the mailing was necessary. Not all county voters were being reached through a series of town halls, courthouse tours of the current courthouse in Staunton, or through print media or television news reports about the referendum, Bragg claimed. Generally, public officials must hold a public vote when expending large sums of money that are not already included in an annual budget, for instance, though there are exceptions. A decision made through a private "poll" of supervisors would not constitute a public vote, of course, but it could not be determined Thursday if the details and amount of funds in this case represent a clear violation of the Freedom of Information Act.
News Virginian
Following a lengthy and heated discussion at last week’s school board retreat, the Amherst County School Board decided to revisit the Pleasant View Elementary School closure vote at its November meeting. At the Nov. 10 meeting the board will vote whether to reaffirm or rescind a previous board’s decision to close PVES at the end of this school year. The board has said the vote will be the final decision before the issue is laid to rest, whichever way the vote falls. Board Member Jennifer Cumby said her position on the school has “always been clear,” reminding the board that she was “very vocal” in her opposition to close PVES but the issue needs to be settled. She added that when a person is a board member, there are a lot of issues that need attention, and things can’t be stopped for too long or they start piling up. “…This is where we are right now,” Cumby said. “And I think being on the board, as opposed to being an observer, even a very avid one, it’s a very different situation because I might have my one issue … my own community and I have my own point of view, but when you’re at the table, you don’t just have two or three plates spinning … and they all have to keep going …”
New Era-Progress
Fairfax County School Board member Elizabeth Schultz (Springfield), a vocal conservative, has never been shy about sharing her views in the heavily Democratic county. She opposed regulations that would affirm the right of transgender students to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity, has spoken out against levying a meals tax that would generate millions of dollars for the school system and has criticized the board’s move to rename a high school that bears the name of a Confederate general. Schultz has for years been a champion of conservative causes — part of a small minority on the liberal school board in Northern Virginia — but it has been her support for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign that has drawn particular ire from some members of the community. Sue Langley, chair of the Fairfax County Democratic Committee, recently called for Schultz to resign from the board after she posted tweets related to Trump that Langley found threatening and offensive. Schultz said the fact that the head of the local Democratic Party called for her resignation because of tweets “sent a chill down my spine.”
Washington Post
National Stories
A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the U.S. Congress asked the Justice Department to clarify how a looming rule change to the government’s hacking powers could impact privacy rights of innocent Americans. The change, due to take place on December 1, would let judges issue search warrants for remote access to computers located in any jurisdiction, potentially including foreign countries.
Reuters
Mylan NV's price hikes on EpiPens have added millions to U.S. Department of Defense spending since 2008 as the agency covered more prescriptions for the lifesaving allergy shot at near retail prices, government data provided to Reuters shows. Pentagon spending rose to $57 million over the past year from $9 million in 2008 - an increase driven both by volume and by price hikes that had a bigger bite on prescriptions filled at retail pharmacies, according to the previously unreported data.
Reuters
Editorials/Columns
Petersburg officials did the right thing when they turned to a consulting group headed by Robert Bobb, a former city manager of Richmond, to help the city set itself right. But they sure went about it the wrong way. As K. Burnell Evans reported in this newspaper, the Petersburg City Council voted on hiring the Robert Bobb Group twice. The first vote was 3-3-1. The council’s rules require that it wait 30 days before reconsidering a proposal. Yet only two days later, the council voted again. The second vote came down 4-1 in favor. The city’s charter requires the number of council members present for an emergency re-vote be at least equal to the number of those present for the original vote. Little, if any, of this might have come to light were it not for the tenacious scrutiny of The Times-Dispatch. Our newsroom has shone a light on the facts. What the citizens of Petersburg do with the information is up to them.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Ballot selfies first became an issue in 2014, when New Hampshire banned them — on the theory that the ballot is so secret that not even the voter should be able to share a copy of how he or she voted. That fall, one New Hampshire voter unhappy with his choices for the U.S. Senate, posted a photo showing he voted for his dog instead. (For good measure, the dog was deceased at the time.) The state attorney general’s office started investigating; the voter fought back by suing the state — and a federal judge ruled that the state’s ban on “ballot selfies” constituted an infringement on voters’ free speech rights. Ballot selfies became a really big deal, though, last year in Canada — which banned such photos in its national election, and saw lots of Canadians openly flout the ban. Now it’s 2016 and even Snapchat has gotten involved. New Hampshire is appealing the judge’s ruling. The Snapchat messaging service has filed a brief in the New Hampshire case, arguing that ballot selfies are “simply the latest way that voters, especially young voters, engage with the political process and show their civic pride.” Ballot selfies may be silly. Ballot selfies may be an act of civic pride. But to suggest that ballot selfies are a vehicle to validate vote-buying is to not understand the zeitgeist.
Roanoke Times
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