Transparency News, 12/15/21

VCOG submitted a letter to AG-elect Miyares making suggestions for how FOIA might be improved both internally and in the advicegiven to agencies.
Read the letter on VCOG’s website

On behalf of Transparency Virginia, VCOG submitted a letter to the Speaker-designee and the 2022 majority and minority leadership in the House and Senate, as well as the clerks of both chambers, asking for continued improvements in legislative transparency.
Read the letter on the Transparency Virginia website

As Virginia struggles to control a ransomware attack on its legislative branch of government, an agency in the state’s executive branch also has been hit in a second attack that is global in scope. The Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services said Tuesday that its IT system for managing employee payroll and time sheets has been “paralyzed” by a ransomware attack on the global network of the Ultimate Kronos Group, a digital cloud-based human resources management company. “At this time, we do not know if this is related to the ransomware attack over the weekend on Virginia’s legislative agencies,” said Lauren Cunningham, a spokesperson for the state agency. “There is no indication that information was compromised or that any DBHDS systems have been compromised.” David Burhop, director of the Department of Legislative Automated Services, told legislative leaders on Monday that hackers broke into the system late Friday, “using extremely sophisticated malware.” The attackers provided a ransom note “with no specific amount (or date) to get our data back,” he said. Burhop said in an email that the attack affects all internal computer servers in the legislative agencies, “including bill drafting, our regulatory system, budget system, file servers and General Assembly voicemail.”
Richmond Times-Dispatch

Loudoun County Circuit Court Judge Jeanette A. Irby on Tuesday scheduled two pre-trial hearings for Jan. 5 and Feb. 23, both set at 1 p.m., in the case concerning a petition to recall school board vice chair Atoosa Reaser (Algonkian District).  Brenda Sheridan (Sterling District), who also faces a recall effort, has hearings set for the same days, but at 10 a.m. for both. Irby made the order during Reaser’s visit to court Monday. The petition to recall Reaser received at least 1,859 signatures, according to a Nov. 9 email to the Times-Mirror from Fight For Schools, a political action committee spearheading the effort.
Loudoun Times-Mirror
 

After four decades of hiding records of police misconduct, California has become one of the most transparent states. Prompted by a 2018 bill authored by State Sen. Nancy Skinner, a Berkeley Democrat, and two follow-up bills signed into law this year, the change means that it is much more difficult in California for bad cops to hide or get hired by another department. But across the nation, similar efforts to make police misconduct and complaint records available to the public — or even to police chiefs seeking to provide counseling or weed out bad officers — are moving slowly. In many states, not only can these records be kept secret, but they also can be destroyed or locked away indefinitely.
The Sacramento Bee

 

 

It’s difficult to imagine that there have been any silver linings surrounding the deadly Covid-19 pandemic. But there has been one that’s been seen as particularly valuable to people who are concerned with government transparency: Public meetings in which attendees can participate remotely. Remote public gatherings, ranging from those for zoning to city council meetings, have become ubiquitous over the last couple of years. The advantages are manifold. Adds Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government: “Remote meetings open up the possibility for more voices to be heard.”  There are, of course, some disadvantages to remote meetings. For one thing, there are a number of places in the United States in which broadband service isn’t available to a number of people in a community, and that effectively mutes them from remote public meetings. There also are natural advantages to normal human interactions that are difficult to simulate in virtual meetings. 
Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene, Route Fifty