Locations of hundreds of Flock cameras in Hampton Roads revealed // Alexandria’s school board may create a website to boost transparency // State senator’s FOIA shed more light on on former UVA president’s departure

The University Board of Visitors will convene at Boar’s Head Resort for all of its December meetings, instead of traditionally having the majority of meetings on Grounds in the Rotunda. The venue change — which is now about a 10 minute drive from Central Grounds — has sparked concern from a legal expert about accessibility and full compliance with Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act….There is no University or Charlottesville bus route that goes directly to the venue. “In considering logistics and security for the December Board of Visitors meeting, the University noted the event’s overlap with the Lighting of the Lawn,” University Spokesperson Bethanie Glover said. “In order to efficiently manage meeting traffic and security … the meeting was scheduled to be held at Boar’s Head Resort.” The Virginia Freedom of Information Act says that all public meetings and documents must be presumed open, unless there is a specific exemption invoked. Glover said that to further accommodate members of the public, the meetings’ open sessions will be livestreamed, as usual, “allowing for expanded accessibility.” However, Kevin Martingayle, partner at Bischoff Martingayle in Virginia Beach and Class of 1991 Law alumnus, said that a livestream may not be enough to fully comply with FOIA law. Martingayle said that attending meetings in-person gives unique insight that one might not be able to observe online — such as the facial expressions and interactions among Board members that may be off-camera on a livestream.

As George Mason University Rector Charles Stimson addressed his colleagues Thursday, he sat across from faculty members, students and campus workers holding signs plastered with images of his face, gathered in opposition to his decision to hold a second executive committee meeting with only six voting members. Tensions have boiled over within the Northern Virginia university’s community over Stimson’s decision to meet and vote on university matters without the required quorum. Outside of GMU’s meeting on Thursday, protestors yelled “no quorum, no business,” and organizers accused the board of meeting improperly.

To explain why a city-issued cell phone relevant to a pending lawsuit had virtually no text messages on it, attorneys for the city of Richmond said in court that the original phone had been lost in an airport. The phone shown to the judge was mostly blank, the lawyers explained, because it was a replacement for the one that went missing. However, city records obtained by The Richmonder show that, at one point, officials believed the original phone issued to former city spokeswoman Petula Burks had been found. Burks reported the phone lost in late June of 2024, shortly before she resigned from City Hall on July 1. A June 20 incident report about the lost phone said it was being kept in a “secure location” at the unidentified airport. And officials seemed to be trying to figure out how to get it back. The help desk documents — which the city released to The Richmonder in response to a Freedom of Information Act request — raise new questions about what happened to a missing cell phone that’s become a major sticking point in a lawsuit about an alleged lack of transparency at City Hall.

It was a somewhat rocky start to Thursday’s budget retreat at the downtown Hilton, where members of Mayor Danny Avula’s administration and City Council met in an attempt to work out recent discord over the city’s budget process. … Councilwoman Kenya Gibson, who represents the 3rd District, asked how the parties could have any kind of productive conversation without those “actual numbers” — and reiterated her frustration over the city’s $22 million estimated surplus amid rising costs of living for residents….Gibson also took aim at how the retreat was structured, questioning whether meeting in a small event space off-site from City Hall on a Thursday afternoon was conducive to transparent, public debate. “I want to state the elephant in this tiny room, and that’s that there’s no room for the public to be here, and there’s barely room for the media to be here,” she said. Before the retreat began, Chief Administrative Officer Odie Donald II told reporters not to place recording devices on the tables because “private conversations” might break out between attendees. Donald defended the setup of the retreat, noting that city code doesn’t require either the mayor or City Council to hold such an event at all.

As the General Assembly reconvenes in January, discussions over hot button agenda items such as the budget, gun control, the minimum wage, redistricting, regulated retail marijuana and affordable housing will dominate the agenda — as they should. There is a seminal issue underlying all these matters — long overdue reforms to Virginia’s anemic Freedom of Information Act. Fixing FOIA would provide transparency in the form of better information, both directly and through the media, for politicians, voters, businesses and others to design and debate, compromise and legislate responsible policy that meets the needs of Virginia’s people, businesses and communities.