Transparency News 1/17/20
Friday
January 17, 2020
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state & local news stories
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The number of passengers caught with firearms at airports — both in Roanoke and across Virginia — dropped slightly in 2019. Statewide, the total fell from 82 to 74 last year. At Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport, five pistols were seized. That’s one fewer than in 2018 and more or less in line with the facility’s history. A federal Freedom of Information Act request, filed by The Roanoke Times in November 2018, sought the specific penalties brought against the nine people stopped with guns at Roanoke’s airport in 2017 and 2018. Fourteen months later, that query remains unfulfilled. Periodic email exchanges with a TSA specialist last year — in February, May, July, October and December — said the data is being processed, but so far it hasn’t been released.
The Roanoke Times
Circuit Court Judge James E. Plowman, Jr. dismissed Jackson District Supervisor Ron Frazier’s appeal for Rappahannock County taxpayers to pay his attorney fees in connection with Marian Bragg v the Board of Supervisors. Plowman ruled that he did not have jurisdiction to overturn a discretionary act made by a legislative body, in this case the county’s Board of Supervisors. Bragg’s 2016 suit, one of two she filed against the county government after moving here from Culpeper County, charges the Board of Supervisors with allegedly violating Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by not properly announcing closed meetings to discuss hiring a Rappahannock County attorney. After certifying that everything discussed at those 2016 closed meetings were exempt, Frazier later reversed his certification declaration and accused his supervisor colleagues of discussing topics that are not exempt from FOIA. Frazier sought legal counsel even though he was not a party to the suit, claiming that the county was obligated to pay his bills because he is a supervisor.
Rappahannock News
The Amherst County Board of Supervisors’ first meeting of the month now will have a later start time of 3 p.m. starting in February. The board instituted the change with a unanimous vote at its Jan. 9 meeting. The first Tuesday meeting of the month for many years has started at 1 p.m. Tom Martin, the board’s newest member who took office in January, recently suggested the change. He has said the move could be advantageous in allowing more residents to attend the later meeting.
The News & Advance
A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by an Alexandria resident revealed that the Alexandria Fire Department would have preferred leaving Seminary Road four lanes for safety reasons. This fall, after a year-long discussion and study process, City Council voted 4 to 3 to put Seminary Road on a “diet” — reducing the major east-west thoroughfare from two lanes in each direction to one lane in each direction with a center turn lane. Repaving from the intersection of Quaker Lane on the east end to Howard Street on the west end of the “diet” portion was done in late October and early November. The road was redesigned to provide safer crossings and pathways for pedestrians and bikers while encouraging vehicular traffic to travel at safer, slower speeds. Before and after the “diet,” residents raised concerns about whether fire department vehicles, including ambulances, would be able to safely and quickly respond to emergencies. Wednesday night, administrators of the Facebook group ‘Alexandria Residents Against the Seminary Road Diet’ posted documents they received as the results of a FOIA request. The documents included a listing of communications between Alexandria Fire Department officials and Transportation & Environmental Services.
Alexandria Living
Louisa County Broadband Authority members say they’d like to report to the community how many citizens have obtained faster internet service as a result of the group’s work. But they can’t, they say, because SCS Broadband, the company contracted to provide service on all of the authority’s wireless towers, won’t tell them. “It’s amazing to me that we can’t get these numbers from the people we hired,” said Melvin Burruss, an authority member, at the Jan. 8 meeting. Bob Hardy, the county’s information technology director, pointed out that the authority didn’t “hire” SCS Broadband, it signed a contract with them. He said he believes the contract obliges the company to share customer data with the authority, but not with the public. Clay Stewart, SCS Broadband’s chief operating officer, said information about the company’s customers is proprietary, but said he was happy to share it with the authority in closed session. The lack of hard data to present to the public is frustrating to authority members, especially at a time when the board of supervisors is questioning whether the authority should continue to exist.
The Central Virginian
stories of national interest
New York’s new top government transparency official was hired in darkness. When the administration of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced the hiring of Shoshanah Bewlay as the executive director at the Committee on Open Government last week, it came as news to many of the body’s 11 commissioners – by design. The Cuomo administration had ordered Bewlay’s hiring stay under close wraps until just before a press release was issued Jan. 6, keeping the news secret from even the people overseeing the entity. During her prior four years in the Cuomo administration, Bewlay was general counsel at the state Office of Information Technology Services and oversaw agency responses to open records requests. She routinely wrote opinions in favor of delaying and denying Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests, ruling against the Times Union in 10 of out 10 decisions she issued last year to the newspaper.
Albany Times Union
As Tennessee moves closer to online sports betting, regulators have received extensive feedback on draft gaming rules, according to a summary of public comments released this week. Online sports wagering became legal in Tennessee last July, but consumers haven’t been able to place bets because state officials are still finalizing how they will regulate and license operators.
Bristol Herald Courier
"The Cuomo administration had ordered [the transparency counsel's] hiring stay under close wraps until just before a press release was issued Jan. 6, keeping the news secret from even the people overseeing the entity."
editorials & columns
"While the federal government is not allowed to charge media companies for FOIAs, our state and local governments are allowed – but not required – to charge the media for information."
Our second 2020 initiative isn’t entirely new like Speak Easy, but rather an amplification of our investigative reporting efforts. The Washington Post’s motto, “Democracy dies in darkness,” is a reflection of that publication’s commitment to closely watching government operations. Requests for documents under the Freedom of Information Act, commonly called FOIAs, are essential to investigative reporting. These documents are often email communications between city employees, but they can also be requests for minutes from old meetings or documents pertaining to land use decisions. Many people are under the false impression that FOIA requests are free for media companies. In fact, while the federal government is not allowed to charge media companies for FOIAs, our state and local governments are allowed – but not required – to charge the media for information. The City of Alexandria generally works well with media companies on information requests. City spokesman Craig Fifer is responsive and tries to steer requests toward free sources, while Assistant City Attorney Adrienne Fine, who is in charge of FOIA requests, works with the media to narrow requests and limit costs. Despite their efforts, FOIA costs add up quickly, and many media companies simply can’t afford them. Even those that can are constrained by cost.
Alexandria Times
(NOTE: Craig Fifer is the immediate past president of VCOG's board of directors.)
