Transparency News 11/5/15

Thursday, November 5, 2015

State and Local Stories


Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms was charged Wednesday with five misdemeanor counts of violating the state’s Conflict of Interest Act for votes he cast that benefited borrowers of the bank where he served as a president, according to an email from the special prosecutor. The five charges against Sessoms are punishable by a maximum fine of $500 each, prosecutor Michael Doucette said. A trial has been set for Dec. 7, but that could change to accommodate Sessoms’ attorney, Doucette said. The state’s criminal investigation ended about a year after The Virginian-Pilot first reported that Sessoms, 61, a former TowneBank president, had voted dozens of times on issues that benefited clients of the bank. The newspaper’s investigation reviewed all votes Sessoms took and compared them with 3,000 land deed records, real estate sales documents, council agendas and lawsuits. 
Virginian-Pilot

The New College Institute (NCI) will follow proper procedures in hiring its new executive director, board Chairwoman Gracie Agnew vowed Wednesday. Her comment, made in a press release issued by NCI, came a day after the Office of the State Inspector General (OSIG) announced following an investigation that it had uncovered no evidence of institute officials doing anything illegal in matters pertaining to the hiring of former executive director William Wampler, also a former state senator. An OSIG spokesman has said, though, that the office wants NCI to be more transparent about its operations and decisions in the future.
Martinsville Bulletin

National Stories

In September, the U.S. Marine Corps released a four-page summary of a yearlong study that found that all-male units were faster, more lethal and able to evacuate casualties in less time than mixed-gender units. The study was bashed by critics for being biased. NPR was able to independently obtain the full 978-page Marine Corps study. NPR's Tom Bowman reports that the study — marked "pre-decisional and not releasable under the Freedom of Information Act" — was the basis for a recent decision by Marine Corps Commandant, General Joseph Dunford to recommend that all infantry jobs be closed to women. Dunford, who has since been elevated to chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the same recommendation to Defense Secretary Ash Carter, according to Pentagon sources. Carter's decision on the issue is expected in the coming weeks. The Army, Air Force and Navy have recommended that all ground combat jobs be opened to women.
NPR

The movement to publish open government data has attracted increased attention through initiatives such as the Open Government Partnership,the new Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data — a coalition of over 70 organisations including the governments of the US and Mexico — and the International Open Data Charter. All of this is encouraging news, but following last week’s Open Government Partnership summit in Mexico we need to think carefully about the challenges of embedding open data practice into government. Not enough attention has been paid to how the dynamics within governments affect the success or failure of open data initiatives. Making the commitment to pursuing an open government data policy is only the first step.Rolling out implementation and embedding “open by default” through all levels of government and across all agencies, ministries and institutions presents a number of challenges. Above all, different levels and agencies of government have varying interpretations of how open data policies should be implemented. This review, entitled “Embedding Open Data Practice: Developing indicators on the institutionalisation of open data practice in two African governments”, examined open data policy, licensing and implementation in the cases of the governments of Kenya and South Africa to take a closer look at how open data practice takes shape on the ground, and what other governments can learn from this experience.
Worldwide Web Foundation


Editorials/Columns

Tuesday’s election means big changes in how the King George Board of Supervisors will do business next year. Voters ushered in a new majority on the five-member board; candidates who campaigned to bring greater transparency on how supervisors transact county business. The three also emphasized a desire to encourage better communication with residents whether it’s at public meetings, town hall sessions or via social media.
Free Lance-Star