Transparency News, 12/14/2022

Wednesday
December 14, 2022

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state & local news stories

WHO IS YOUR FOI HERO?
VCOG is seeking nominations for its open government awards for citizens, press and government.
Click here for details.

THANK YOU to our early conference sponsors, including co-host Threshold Counsel, plus CountingBeans LLC, Thomas H. Roberts & Associates, Virginia Association of Broadcasters, WHRO, WTVR and WWBT, and individual donors Glen Besa and Josh Heslinga. You can join them by donating to (or registering for) the March 16 conference, which will be held in Charlottesville. (p.s. March 16 is FOI Day in Virginia)

Austin Lee Edwards, the now-deceased cop who “catfished” a 15-year-old Riverside girl and killed her grandparents and mother last month, disclosed during his application to become a Virginia state trooper that he had voluntarily checked himself into a mental health facility several years earlier, according to records reviewed by the Los Angeles Times. The Virginia State Police hired him anyway. Corinne Geller, a Virginia State Police spokeswoman, said last month that there weren’t “any indicators of concern” that surfaced during Edwards’ “extensive” hiring process. But the records reviewed by The Times show the agency had at least some indication of Edwards’ mental health struggles. Geller also previously declined a public records request sent by The Times for Edwards’ background check and psychological evaluation, stating that it was exempt from the public records law because they’re part of Edwards’ personnel file, which is exempt from mandatory disclosure, she said. The records showing that Edwards disclosed much of his personal history were shared with The Times by Jeff Pike, chief executive of investigation company Complete Surveillance and Investigative Services. Pike used to work in law enforcement in Virginia for nearly two decades and said he shared the records to shed light on the lower hiring standards for law enforcement in Virginia. Two people with deep knowledge of the Virginia State Police’s internal systems and protocols, who were granted anonymity because they fear retaliation for speaking to the press, verified the records’ authenticity.
The Virginian-Pilot

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares sent a scathing letter Wednesday to a state commission investigating the 2019 mass shooting in Virginia Beach. The letter comes days after The Virginian-Pilot published an article Sunday detailing that about half of the commission’s members had left the board amid allegations of dysfunction. “I have been incredibly disappointed in the way that the Commission has conducted their investigation and review thus far,” he wrote. “I implore you, on behalf of the citizens of Virginia Beach and the Commonwealth of Virginia, to prioritize this Commission’s mission.” In his letter, Miyares said meeting attendance was a longstanding problem among many commission members. Miyares also cited concerns that committed members were facing road blocks. “When diligent members have sought access to pertinent and necessary information, they have hit resistance from the City of Virginia Beach, as well as fellow Commissioners,” he wrote. “In recent months, the general lack of cooperation from the City of Virginia Beach, and the overall dysfunction of the Commission, has led ten of its twenty-one members to resign.”
Daily Press

The Spotsylvania School Board on Sunday canceled its regularly scheduled Monday meeting and then scheduled a special meeting for Thursday that will not include public comments. According to an email from the School Board’s deputy clerk Patty Boller that was sent to the school community on Monday, the regular meeting was canceled “due to unexpected circumstances.” Boller sent a second email Monday afternoon announcing the special meeting scheduled for Thursday at 5 p.m. “to consider personnel matters and consent items.” “There will be no opportunity for comments from the public during this special meeting,” the email continues. Public comments were part of the agenda for Monday’s canceled meeting and are welcomed at all regular board meetings, according to School Board policy. According to board member Dawn Shelley, Chair Kirk Twigg did not contact the entire board prior to scheduling Thursday’s special meeting. “Why, yet again, did you schedule a meeting without contacting the entire board? You have done this close to twenty times,” Shelley wrote in an email to Twigg, which she copied to The Free Lance–Star. 
The Free Lance-Star
 

stories of national interest

"The appeals court judge noted . . . the gift agreements are not of a personal nature nor do they present an unwarranted invasion of privacy."

Michigan State University has 10 days to publicly disclose the agreements between the university and mega-donors Mat Ishbia and Stephen St. Andre used to fund much of the $95 million contract given to football coach Mel Tucker last year, according to a court decision handed down earlier this week. Michigan Court of Claims Judge Brock Swartzle ruled Monday that the university's agreements for three contributions made by United Wholesale Mortgage's Mat Ishbia and Shift Digital CEO Stephen St. Andre did not fall under privacy exemptions in the state's public records law. United Wholesale Mortgage President and CEO Mat Ishbia
The documents, Swartzle ruled, "must be produced, but MSU must redact the home addresses and estate-planning provisions within those agreements before production." Swartzle sided with the Detroit Free Press, which sued for the records after the university repeatedly blocked the release of the agreements. The appeals court judge noted that he reviewed the documents in question "in camera," or in chambers, and found the gift agreements are not of a personal nature nor do they present an unwarranted invasion of privacy.
The Detroit News
 

editorials & columns

"He ought to challenge one of the three indictment counts leveled against him, which makes it a criminal misdemeanor to 'knowingly and willfully' give a 'false or untrue statement' to the media for publication or broadcast."

A major First Amendment expert agrees that someone probably should challenge the constitutionality of a Virginia statute now in the news. I wrote Monday that while Scott Ziegler, the recently fired superintendent of schools in Loudoun County, Virginia, surely deserves condemnation for flagrantly mishandling a transgender sexual assault case, he ought to challenge one of the three indictment counts leveled against him — the violation of Virginia Code § 18.2-209, which makes it a criminal misdemeanor to “knowingly and willfully” give a “false or untrue statement” to the media for publication or broadcast. When the First Amendment’s free speech protections are curtailed, even in order to penalize someone who ethically may seem to “deserve” it, all of us suffer a potential diminution of freedom. Following up on Tuesday, the widely respected First Amendment expert Eugene Volokh supported that analysis. He wrote this to me: “Some laws banning knowing lies are indeed constitutional — consider libel laws, or laws banning false statements to government investigators. But a law that broadly bans all lies about people sent to the media is too broad; it would, for instance, ban self-serving lies about one’s own actions and accomplishments, which the Supreme Court has held are often constitutionally protected.”
Quin Hillier, Washington Examiner