Transparency News, 11/23/20

 

In late July, employees in Virginia’s Office of the Inspector General were preparing to release what they seemed to think was an important report on alleged misconduct by the Virginia Parole Board. But before releasing the report, records show the inspector general’s office (OSIG) sent Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration an advance notice that the document would be distributed “on or about” July 24 to journalists who had requested it under the Freedom of Information Act. The email appeared to set off a chain of events that would delay the report’s release and end with the redaction of nearly everything in it, according to emails the Virginia Mercury obtained through public records requests. The correspondence reveals members of Northam’s administration, who publicly stated they wanted more transparency in the matter, were working closely behind the scenes with the Parole Board as it sought to ensure most of the information would be withheld from public view. It also shows Northam’s administration helped craft the board’s formal response casting doubt on the veracity of the inspector general’s findings.
Virginia Mercury

Virginia politicians face some of the loosest ethics rules in the U.S., according to a new index from nonpartisan group Coalition for Integrity. Just five states ranked lower than Virginia in the coalition’s States With Anti-Corruption Measures for Public Officials (S.W.A.M.P.) Index. The ranking tracks whether states (and Washington D.C.) have rules to thwart potential corruption and conflict of interests and punish lawmakers who disobey the rules. The states with the strongest ratings — Washington, Rhode Island, and California — have ethics agencies that investigate wrongdoing, subpoena witnesses, and dole out punishments, and whose members are protected from politically-motivated removals.
VPM

Hiring at Virginia Tech — the largest employer in the New River Valley — has slowed this summer to more than half the typical rate. “We’ve really moved forward with restraint,” Jack Finney, vice provost for faculty affairs, told Tech’s board of visitors earlier this week . “We had asked for all new hires to take a pause until we better understood the budget situation.” Still, Tech added nearly $28 million in payroll between April 6 and October 26 — the dates between when the university imposed a freeze at the state’s behest, and when Virginia’s finance secretary lifted the restrictions — according to a spreadsheet of hires provided to The Roanoke Times in response to a public records request. However, the list of 425 new employees includes many who received offers before the pandemic. And it is nearly impossible to calculate employee costs actually incurred during the freeze.
The Roanoke Times

A judge recently ruled in favor of Staunton Councilwoman Brenda Mead in her legal fight against Mayor Andrea Oakes, finding that her rights under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) were violated by the mayor. The judge ordered that Mead’s legal fees be paid after a FOIA request she sent to Oakes in September went unanswered for several days. After getting no response, Mead filed the civil suit. On Sept. 12, Mead said she first requested the document through the city manager’s office. The request was forwarded to Oakes and the entire council. On Sept. 17, Mead contacted Robertson to no avail. The following day on Sept. 18, she filed a Freedom of Information Act request through the city. Mead’s attorney, Andrew Bodoh, who specializes in FOIA law, said while the dispute was not the norm it wasn’t “the first time I’ve come across a case like this.” Bodoh said the issue was the mayor incorrectly treated Mead’s initial document request on Sept. 12 as being outside the boundaries of a FOIA request.
News Leader

 

Barely twelve hours after television networks declared Donald Trump the next president of the United States four years ago, officials at Border Patrol headquarters in Washington, D.C., quietly launched a new operation – not to capture drug smugglers or human traffickers, but to capture the attention of the Trump appointees who would be taking control of government. “[W]e are moving fast and furious here at HQ to be prepared for the new Administration,” the agency’s head of law enforcement operations told colleagues in an email on Nov. 9, 2016, the day after the election. Hundreds of Border Patrol emails obtained by ABC News through a Freedom of Information Act request offer a rare glimpse into just how far government agencies usually go and how quickly they take action to prepare for a new administration – efforts that current officials say are on hold right now across the U.S. government.
ABC News

The citizens of Pelham, Mass., filed into their new meeting house for the first time on April 19, 1743. They have continued to do so, at least once annually, uninterrupted, for the next 277 years. Still the site of the town’s annual meeting, the Pelham Town Hall has the distinction of being the oldest meeting house in continuous use in the United States. The old town hall has hosted meetings and events through the American Revolution, two world wars and the Great Depression. This year, some wondered if COVID would break the building’s centuries-old record of continuous use, with confirmed cases of the disease having nearly tripled in Massachusetts since Labor Day. But a small group of Pelham citizens were determined not to let that happen, conducting an abbreviated annual meeting on a Saturday morning in late October before decamping to a safer site nearby.
Governing

The chief executive over the Voice of America and its sister networks has acted unconstitutionally in investigating what he claimed was a deep-seated bias against President Trump by his own journalists, a federal judge has ruled. Citing the journalists’ First Amendment protections, U.S. Judge Beryl Howell on Friday evening ordered U.S. Agency for Global Media CEO Michael Pack to stop interfering in the news service’s news coverage and editorial personnel matters.  Actions by Pack and his aides have likely “violated and continue to violate [journalists’] First Amendment rights because, among other unconstitutional effects, they result in self-censorship and the chilling of First Amendment expression,” Howell wrote in her opinion. “These current and unanticipated harms are sufficient to demonstrate irreparable harm.”
NPR
 

House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, D-Fairfax, recently announced that the General Assembly will once again convene “virtually” for 45 days starting Jan. 13, 2021. Filler-Corn noted that the House will livestream all committee and subcommittee meetings this time and offer an option to constituents to submit written comments on pending legislation, but House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, countered that the regular session should be as brief as possible “until the people of Virginia can once again fully participate in their government.” Filler-Corn noted that the House will livestream all committee and subcommittee meetings this time and offer an option to constituents to submit written comments on pending legislation, but Gilbert countered that the regular session should be as brief as possible “until the people of Virginia can once again fully participate in their government.”
The Free Lance-Star