Transparency News 1/17/14

State and Local Stories

Wayne Coleman, the Republican candidate in the race for Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam’s former state Senate seat, filed for a recount Thursday in the tight contest. “We owe it to the people of the 6th District to make sure we get this one right and that every legitimate vote cast in this election is fairly and accurately counted,” Coleman said in a statement released by his campaign.
Roanoke Times

Attorney General Mark R. Herring has dumped contracts with two law firms retained in connection with the resolved criminal case involving a former Executive Mansion chef and a gifts investigation into former Gov. Bob McDonnell. Taxpayers have already paid more than $780,000 for legal bills to the law firms of Eckert Seamans and Baker & McKenzie LLP, which were retained under the former attorney general's office because of a conflict. Both of those firms were notified Thursday that their appointments were being terminated and that “no further billings or legal activities should be performed under your appointment.”
Invoices have been submitted through at least October and charges for work in late 2013 could bump the final cost higher.
Times-Dispatch

Republicans' one-sided war of words over Gov. Terry McAuliffe's pick of a former GOP operative for a six-figure state job escalated Thursday with the release of an e-mail purportedly showing the new hire last year sought work on Ken Cuccinelli's campaign. McAuliffe this week named longtime Republican strategist Boyd Marcus as one of his picks for Virginia's three-member Alcoholic Beverage Control Board months after Marcus endorsed McAuliffe's gubernatorial candidacy, then did paid campaign work for him. Now, Republicans already upset over McAuliffe's plan to reward a person some consider a traitor have a new reason to be angry: an e-mail suggesting Marcus tried to find paid work with Cuccinelli before defecting to McAuliffe's side.
Virginian-Pilot

Embattled Patrick County Schools Superintendent Roger Morris resigned his position Thursday to retire for health reasons, and a second administrator also is slated to leave the division. Morris, who has been on medical leave since August, did not comment publicly but addressed the school board during the closed session portion of its regular meeting.
Martinsville Bulletin

Every day, police officers across Virginia scan the license plates of tens of thousands of vehicles and enter that information into their departments’ databases, hoping that it might help solve a crime. But last year, then-Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II issued a clear opinion about the use of license plate readers, which have become common across the country: If the information isn’t directly related to a criminal case, it “may not lawfully be collected.” Virginia State Police quickly adopted a policy to purge the data within 24 hours, unless a crime was involved. But in Northern Virginia, police departments have decided to ignore Cuccinelli’s opinion. They maintain databases of the information — photos with the vehicle’s location at the time — and share them with other police departments in the Washington region.
Washington Post

Shenandoah County's new website went online Thursday after months of work on the redesign and staff training. The website features one-click links to go to pages and conduct business with the county, such as pay bills, obtain permits, see tourism and parks and recreation activities, and look up property information. Under the links, visitors will see announcements for upcoming government meetings, information on business hours and contacts, and a section on the Board of Supervisors.
Northern Virginia Daily

An Alexandria man who resigned from Fairfax County Public Schools on Friday was arrested Monday and charged with taking school computers and selling them. Fairfax County Police say Craig Soderberg, 60, of Lady Anne Court in Alexandria, was charged Monday with two counts of embezzlement after a three-month investigation revealed that he was allegedly taking used laptop computers from a warehouse where older FCPS equipment was stored, refurbishing them, and then selling them online.
Fairfax Times

National Stories

The city of New York has reached an $18 million settlement over the arrest of roughly 1,800 protesters, journalists, and bystanders at the 2004 Republican National Convention. Journalists, often those who were not credentialed, were among the many swept into holding pens at Pier 57 in New York City, some held for a couple hours and others held well over 24 hours. The conditions in the detention facilities – a former bus depot along the Hudson River – were described as filthy with poor ventilation, according to the New York Times. According to the settlement, detainees will receive $10.3 million, which amounts to roughly $6,400 per person, and lawyers will receive $7.6 million. The city did not admit fault.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Republicans are raising concerns about the Obama administration's apparent decision to keep the text of the newly struck Iran nuclear agreement under wraps.  "The Iran deal shouldn't be kept secret from the American people," Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., told Fox News. "If the White House is proud of the deal, it should be able to withstand public scrutiny in its entirety."  The White House on Thursday released a public "summary" of the interim nuclear deal. But Fox News has learned that the actual text was delivered to Congress with major caveats.
Fox News

The US National Security Agency is collecting millions of "untargeted" text message from across the globe on a daily basis, according to a report from The Guardian. An NSA program, codenamed Dishfire, collects and stores nearly 200 million global SMS messages a day, reported The Guardian on Thursday, citing documents provide by NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden. The program reaches beyond existing surveillance targets and collects "pretty much everything it can," according to the report.
CNET News
 

Editorials/Columns

Times-Dispatch: For the past two years, control of the Virginia Senate has teetered on a knife’s edge. That doesn’t seem likely to change anytime soon. Although the General Assembly convened past Wednesday, the upper chamber remains up for grabs. If circumstances put Republicans on the defensive, they too might plead much the same case Democrats made three years ago – albeit with considerably more merit. But if Democrats claim a functional majority with 20 seats and Northam presiding, they will be under no obligation to oblige – and, citing their November sweep of the statewide offices as evidence of a shift in public preferences, probably won’t.

Peter Galuszka, Washington Post: Kudos to Terry McAuliffe. Virginia’s new governor has taken strong and important steps to force the state into much-needed ethics reform by issuing an executive order setting a gift acceptance cap of $100 for himself, his staff and members of state agencies. He’s also allocating $100,000 to set up a state ethics commission to collect information on gift-giving and probe transgressions, although details of how it would work are still hazy. McAuliffe is performing an obvious and needed end run past the General Assembly, which for years has done as little a possible to address Virginia’s laissez-faire ethics rules — among the most lax in the nation.