Transparency News 12/13/16

State and Local Stories
 

Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Monday proposed reforms to the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, a state agency that doles out millions in public money to lure businesses to Virginia and that received a highly critical audit because of lax oversight. McAuliffe held a news conference to discuss his proposed reforms to the partnership, an authority created in 1995 that is overseen by a board appointed by the governor and General Assembly. The audit by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, a legislative watchdog, found mismanagement that had left the state vulnerable to fraud for more than two decades. While praising the staff of the partnership, McAuliffe said taxpayers deserve better and outlined proposals he’ll make when the Assembly convenes on Jan. 11 for the 2017 session, which lasts 45 days.
Virginian-Pilot

A story first reported on FOX 5 found that there were a shocking number of individuals waiting for immigration hearings in Arlington Immigration Court. We found there were thousands of hearings waiting in the system, with 380 of them scheduled as far out as 2023 and 2024. A subsequent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request has uncovered that all of the hearings previously scheduled for 2023 and 2024 were no longer listed. Crystal Souza, the FOIA Public Liaison at the Executive Office for Immigration Review, explained in an email “the cases in the out years were brought forward.”
Fox 5

A two-way data share between the Virginia Department of Transportation and the crowd-sourcing traffic app Waze was launched Monday. The partnership hopes to reduce roadway congestion throughout the Commonwealth, according to a VDOT news release. The collaboration is facilitated through Waze’s Connected Citizens Program, which has relationships with 105 international government agencies including the District Department of Transportation, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the city of Boston.
Southside Daily

National Stories
​

A federal judge has ordered the top science policy official at the White House to preserve all of his emails from a private account while a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit about the messages proceeds. U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler issued the order Monday, requiring Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren to load a thumb drive with all archived messages (including messages marked as deleted) from an account provided by his former employer, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.
Politico

David Donald, an investigative journalist who was long at the frontier of computer-assisted reporting and whose command of large data sets helped propel stories about the underreporting of sex assaults on college campuses, the 2008 financial crisis and bill-padding among Medicare providers, died Dec. 10 at a hospital in Reston, Va. He was 64.  Since 2014, Mr. Donald had been affiliated with American University’s Investigative Reporting Workshop. He previously was data editor at the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative journalism group in Washington, and training director at the Missouri-based Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) organization.
Washington Post

Editorials/Columns


Given the immense power they wield, all presidents should be subject to intense scrutiny. In light of Trump’s attitude toward the press, and his demonstrated tendency to view rules and standards as things that apply only to others, that scrutiny should be particularly rigorous over the next four years. His twin meetings with journalists of screen and print give the nation a good idea of who is up to the task.
Richmond Times-Dispatch