Transparency News 10/8/15

Thursday, October 8, 2015

State and Local Stories

I will be in Denver tomorrow at the National FOI Coalition’s Annual Summit. Follow my tweets from the summit @opengovva and #FOISummit. Transparency News will return Monday, October 12.

The three state employees who will help redraw Virginia's 3rd Congressional District had to sign confidentiality oaths first, and they are forbidden from emailing about the process, even with each other. When their work is done, they must destroy everything that led to the final product, according to a federal court order filed this week. The three members of the General Assembly's Division of Legislative Services will assist a University of California Irvine political science professor in the redrawing. A panel of federal judges hired Prof. Bernard Grofman as a "special master" to work on the map after the state legislature failed to fix elements twice ruled unconstitutional. Any written communication between DLS, which typically does redistricting legwork for the General Assembly, and Grofman will have to be via fax, mail or courier, the court ordered. The Attorney General's Office, which has represented DLS in this case, described the arrangement as "standard for courts and special masters in these situations."
Daily Press

A committee appointed to determine whether Richmond City Council members’ salaries should be increased runs deep with political connections. Among those who will serve on the seven-person committee: a former chief of staff for the mayor, an employee of a political public relations firm, a former adviser to a governor and a local university president. The committee, appointed by the council, is charged with conducting an “independent review of the compensation structure for the City Council’s members” and producing a report by November. Steve Skinner, a spokesman for the council, said the committee hasn’t yet set a date for its first meeting. He said the openings were advertised on the body’s website. Council President Michelle Mosby said applicants were selected through a “rigorous process,” which included a closed meeting last month. She said not having more “average citizens” on the committee is reflective only of the fact that more people didn’t ask to serve. “If you didn’t ask to be on the committee, you wouldn’t have been chosen to be on the committee,” she said.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

Bland County Supervisor Nick Asbury walked out of last week’s board meeting after his fellow supervisors declined to vote on two of his motions. The first motion concerned removing a community member from all county boards; the second one was about improving security at the courthouse. As he exited the courtroom where the board meets, Asbury told board members to “have a good night” before he swung open the courthouse doors and left the room. Asbury said he took the drastic and dramatic action because he feels like two board members, Randy Johnson and Henry Blessing, always table his motions. “They say they will talk about it later and then put it off,” Asbury said.
SWVA Today

National Stories

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and 13 other state attorneys general want to know why publication of the much-maligned Clean Power Plan rule has been delayed. Morrisey announced Wednesday that West Virginia along with Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin have filed a Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, request for communications between the federal Environmental Protection Agency and Office of the Federal Register regarding the rule’s publication.
Legal Newsline

One of the first businesses to invoke the government’s net neutrality rulesagainst an Internet provider has just lost his bid for federal intervention. Commercial Network Services, a San Diego-based company that uses a series of Web cams to broadcast live images of the city to remote viewers, told the Federal Communications Commission in June that Time Warner Cable was hindering its ability to reach consumers with its video traffic.
Washington Post

Amos Newsome, a Dothan, Alabama city commissioner, was booked by police on Tuesday after hitting WTVY reporter Ken Curtis in the head. Curtis, who was asking Newsome whether he had plans to resign following a voter fraud scandal, followed the visibly agitated commissioner to his car before the commissioner yelled “Get!” and struck him in the face.
Poynter

As storytelling evolves on the Web, media and technology industries are overlapping more than ever before. People from each field are learning more about what there is to know and adapt to by working together within organizations and networking at events, hackathons and workshops. Media hackathons are perfect models of experimentation to learn from, especially when the organizers strive to include people with different skills. The best ones have enough structure to give people ideas coming into groups and set expectations of collaboration, listening and learning. The not-so-good ones throw attendees to the wind with too many possibilities and vague goals. One challenge for most is thinking of project ideas that need more than developers to get it done, and providing opportunities for people from different background to see how others work. The path to collaboration in any newsroom is unclear without process and goals. Thinking of these questions and answering them while planning how to organize work in newsrooms will help keep the big picture in mind when working with different teams to tell stories.
Poynter

House ethics investigators have released their report on an improper congressional trip to Azerbaijan that the House Ethics Committee refused to release because it had asked the investigators to stand down. "Respectful of the principles of transparency and accountability in the House ethics process, and with assurance that it will not prejudice any action by the Department of Justice, the OCE Board has voted to release the (report), including the Findings of Fact" that the Ethics Committee had withheld, OCE said in a statement on its website Wednesday. OCE also said it declined to cease its investigation because there was no evidence at the time of the request that the Ethics Committee had an investigation of its own in progress, which is a prerequisite for a stand-down order.
USA Today