Transparency News 10/9/14

National Stories

Global news agency Reuters filed motions Wednesday seeking to open the Oklahoma County courtroom in which oil baron Harold Hamm’s divorce trial has been conducted nearly in secret for almost 10 weeks. Reuters asked Special Judge Howard Haralson for an expedited hearing on its motions to intervene in the case and to make the courtroom and sealed trial transcripts available to the public. On the first day of the trial Aug. 4, Haralson closed the courtroom to everyone who had not signed confidentiality agreements, The Oklahoman reported at the time. The newspaper reported that Haralson expressed concern that disclosure of confidential information could harm Continental Resources Inc. Hamm, one of America’s wealthiest men, is chairman and majority shareholder of the publicly traded company. “There’s no sense destroying a company over a divorce trial,” Haralson said.
FOI Oklahoma

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley has declared free Wi-Fi to be a new “human right,”part of his outreach to young voters as prepares a 2016 run for the Democratic presidential nomination. “Younger people are choosing to live in cities. They realize that connections to each other are making us better — that Wi-Fi is a human right,” Mr. O’Malley told CNN.
Washington Times

As nearly two dozen Secret Service agents and members of the military were punished or fired following a 2012 prostitution scandal in Colombia, Obama administration officials repeatedly denied that anyone from the White House was involved. But new details drawn from government documents and interviews show that senior White House aides were given information at the time suggesting that a prostitute was an overnight guest in the hotel room of a presidential advance-team member — yet that information was never thoroughly investigated or publicly acknowledged.
Washington Post

A controversial proposal to restrict wilderness photography and regulate commercial filming was never intended to require newsgatherers to obtain permits, according to the U.S. Forest Service. But the wording of the regulation will need to be changed to satisfy the concerns of a media coalition that has protested the policy. The agency's director and spokesperson both said the service intends to allow for a wide interpretation of newsgathering, which is exempt from the permit process, that extends far beyond the narrow definition of "breaking news" that appears in the directive.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Editorials/Columns

On Tuesday, the York County Board of Supervisors reviewed proposed changes about how to handle requests under the Freedom of Information Act. They are both curious and troubling. Under the proposal, York government would significantly raise the cost of some documents and provide others only in CD form. The county zoning ordinance, for instance, would cost $80, up from $20, which only those with deep pockets would be able to afford. Citizens would be charged for staff members' time after the first 15 minutes, despite the fact that these are public employees paid with taxpayer dollars. We suppose that initial period is considered pro bono work? And the public information officer would be informed of FOIA requests, including those considered complex, sensitive or of "uncertain legitimacy." We can only wonder what document requests might quality as being "illegitimate."
Daily Press

In “The Dynamic Dominion: Realignment and the Rise of Virginia’s Republican Party Since 1945,” Frank Atkinson wrote that the future would belong to the party of reform. The book came out in 1992, and this is what its author said: “If the commonwealth’s competitive system works well in the 1990s, it will yield at least one party of genuine reform — Republican or Democratic — whose mission will be to apply Virginia’s traditional values innovatively to the state’s rapidly changing and ever more complex conditions.” At this moment, neither Virginia’s Republicans nor its Democrats can claim the reform mantle. The electorate is waiting for one of them to seize the initiative.
Times-Dispatch

The best defense of Virginia's 3rd Congressional District is that it was drawn so bizarrely, so disjointedly and elongated, because state lawmakers wanted to protect incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott and the Republican incumbents in the surrounding districts. That defense – legally valid but morally bankrupt – provided the best hope for the Virginia State Board of Elections' attorneys fighting a lawsuit filed by residents in the 3rd District.
Virginian-Pilot

The campaign for fair redistricting just got a boost via an ironic, but not entirely unexpected, avenue — but at the expense of what currently is Virginia’s only majority-black district. A federal court has ruled that, although it provides a strong center of power for black voters, the 3rd Congressional District serves the purpose of protecting adjacent districts for Republican majorities. The ruling may have another long-term effect. It should give additional ammunition to the critics of gerrymandering, who have been laboring valiantly for years to reform the system and mitigate the self-serving influence of partisan politicians. Now the federal court has stepped in. And although the court’s order deals directly with just one district, the fallout from that decision may be broad indeed.
Daily Progress

Roanoke County Supervisor Al Bedrosian called a news conference Tuesday to reveal details of what he called substantiated allegations of sexual harassment and credit card misuse against unnamed county department heads who, in his view, have not been punished enough. Whether the public at large thinks none of this warrants tougher sanctions or that yes, heads should roll, what should be apparent is how much larger in scale the allegations sound without any particulars to provide perspective. If the board’s vocal minority is outraged, then, with county officials or policies, what can it do if not go public with their concerns? Try to change one or both. Roanoke County is between administrators just now. Rather than issuing mysterious, doleful warnings — in the vein of Church’s “Something is really going wrong, folks” comment at a board meeting — or engaging in Bedrosian’s gleeful theatrics, the board should consider what changes, if any, it wants to see in that office.
Roanoke Times

Tuesday at noon, Roanoke County Supervisor Al Bedrosian held a news conference on the steps of the county administration building. It was extraordinary for a number of reasons. Go ahead and hold me responsible for Tuesday’s news conference, because in last Thursday’s column, I goaded Bedrosian and Church to “put up or shut up” about any scandals they were aware of in the county administration. We have a power struggle on the county board in which the minority can’t get its way. So they’re acting like screaming and flailing children in a supermarket candy aisle after their mom says they can’t have a Hershey bar. Perhaps future disclosures will substantiate the outrageous conduct Bedrosian and Church have so strongly hinted. But we’re not nearly at that point yet. Meanwhile, thanks to Bedrosian’s news conference, it’s possible we also have spouses of some married county workers worried whether their husbands or wives are being unfaithful. Wow. That right there ought to be a lesson in why many personnel matters are best kept under wraps.
Dan Casey, Roanoke Times