Transparency News, 11/29/21
Monday
November 29, 2021
November 29, 2021
state & local news stories
On Wednesday, the Virginia Coalition for Open Government filed the following letter with the Supreme Court of Virginia regarding the inadequate repository of public comments filed about the court's duties in the redistricting process. (Note that as of 8:45 a.m. on Nov. 29, the document had not been updated since 11/23).
Good morning --
The Virginia Coalition for Open Government writes to urge the Supreme Court of Virginia to provide a modernized document management system for receiving and cataloguing public comment on the redistricting process.
Many models for providing indexed, automatically updated document repositories, from free or low-cost services like shared a folder on a Google Drive, Dropbox, Sync, Evernote, Scribd, and others, to more sophisticated applications like those already in use by Virginia's Regulatory Town Hall.
These systems and others like them provide an easy-to-follow timeline of who has submitted comments and when, making it much more useful to citizens to zero in on comments of importance to them, without the endless scrolling of the current single-PDF system.
Further, the current approach being employed on the Supreme Court's website is one that must be manually updated, and -- based at least on today's schedule -- not on a consistent or timely basis.
As of today, Nov. 24 at 11 a.m., 25 hours have passed since the last update (Nov. 24 at 10 a.m.), leaving the public to wonder whether anyone has submitted comments at all, much less knowing whether a response to those comments is warranted.
This is unchartered territory, and it is understandable that some things must be created and tweaked on the fly. This happened when the pandemic began and the Virginia Department of Health has continually adapted its system to provide as much timely information as it could and to be responsive to the public's requests for additional information and/or different ways of presenting it.
The redistricting process has a finite window in which to operate, though. There is no time to waste. It is imperative that the public and the press has up-to-date and easily parsed information about who has submitted comments and when.
There is intense public interest in the process. Please dedicate time and resources immediately to ensure easy access to maximize transparency during that process.
Very truly yours,
Megan Rhyne
Virginia Coalition for Open Government, Executive Director
* * *
Virginia courts allow lawyers to see civil court records digitally from anywhere. But the public doesn’t have the same access; citizens or journalists must drive to each courthouse in the state to view records there. Courthouse News Service wants to change that. It is suing two Virginia court officials in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Virginia’s Eastern District. Nearly all federal district courts and a growing number of state courts offer remote electronic access to civil court records for the public. Not Virginia. Karl R. Hade, head of the Office of the Executive Secretary of the Supreme Court of Virginia, argued that while lawyers are treated differently than the general public, that is done “to further a legitimate state interest in protecting court records from the ease of exploitation that a limitless internet database would provide.”
Richmond Times-Dispatch
The Newport News City Council is the only local governing body in Hampton Roads that doesn’t record its work sessions, and the majority of the council seems determined to keep it that way. During Tuesday night’s gathering, Councilman David Jenkins requested the city begin filming the work sessions, but it died without discussion. The only comments came from Councilwoman Patricia Woodbury, who said she’s always advocated for recording the sessions, and Mayor McKinley Price, who said he didn’t hear any other support, so the meetings would continue unrecorded.
Daily Press
In the weeks before Jason Kessler went to trial for his role in planning the Unite the Right rally, the key organizer’s related Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against Charlottesville and several former officials was largely dismissed. by a Charlottesville Circuit Court. Almost six months after a hearing, in October Moore issued a letter of opinion that largely dismissed the lawsuit, parties and any form of requested relief sought by Kessler. Moore’s order was formally signed on Nov. 16. The lengthy letter addressed many of the complicated aspects of the lawsuit, including the Public Records Act, which the city general district court had ruled only the circuit court had jurisdiction over. In spite of this, Moore wrote that Kessler did not have a right to bring an action under the Public Records Act, which does not offer the right of private action. “It clearly has an administrative purpose — and seems, in fact, totally administrative and procedural — for the benefit of the good operation of the state government and its agencies and (unlike FOIA) not for the benefit of individual citizens themselves,” Moore wrote.
The Daily Progress
A former Front Royal town clerk’s sexual harassment lawsuit against Front Royal continues to move through a federal court. Jennifer Berry alleges in her lawsuit that a former town councilman sexually harassed her and, when she reported the claim, town officials retaliated and then fired her. Harrisonburg attorney Timothy Cupp filed the civil complaint in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia on Jan. 4 on Berry’s behalf. Cupp filed a motion in the court on Friday asking the judge to allow the plaintiff to file certain evidence under seal, specifically an unredacted versionof Berry’s reply memorandum in support of her motion to compel testimony from witnesses, together with portions of the transcript of depositions of Julie Bush, human resources director at the time of the alleged incidents.
The Northern Virginia Daily
The reversion process has hit a snag. The Henry County Board of Supervisors failed to approve an ordinance adopting a voluntary settlement agreement with Martinsville regarding reversion after a public hearing Tuesday night. The lack of a vote effectively tabled the matter, allowing the board the possibility of reviving it at a later time. Asked about the procedure for possibly voting on the ordinance at a future meeting, Chairman Jim Adams said it would first take a consensus of the board members to request that it be added, and he didn’t expect that to happen. “You heard what was said here tonight,” Chairman Jim Adams said. “I’m not an expert on Robert’s Rules of Order, but I don’t see that happening.” At the meeting, all board members spoke about Martinsville reverting from a city to a town in Henry County but subsequently failed to respond to a request from Adams for a motion to approve the ordinance.
Martinsville Bulletin
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