Transparency News 1/2/20

Thursday
January 2, 2020

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter
Contact us at vcog@opengovva.org

state & local news stories

A couple of bills were posted New Year’s Eve that require the proactive publication of two types of data. The bills, both from Del. Schuyler VanValkenburg, involve incidents involving students and school resource officers or school security officers (HB 271) and memoranda of understanding between school boards and local law-enforcement agencies (HB 313). Sen. Mamie Locke is carrying a bill identical to the MOU bill (SB 221).
Follow these and other bills on VCOG’s legislative bill tracking chart

A new state law meant to help tenants facing eviction is being routinely flouted, court records show. The law cuts short the time in which a landlord can seek a writ ordering a tenant evicted. It was one of a series of measures reforming landlord-tenant law after a Princeton University study suggested Virginia cities — including Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk and Chesapeake — had some of the highest eviction rates in the nation. But a Daily Press review of general district court records found more than 575 cases statewide in which the writ was issued after the law’s 180-day deadline passed, including more than 295 in Hampton Roads. In some cases, the writ of eviction came more than a year and eight months after the court finding that the tenant was behind.
Daily Press

They’d just finished setting up projectors to create a replica of the planetarium Thomas Jefferson had envisioned spanning the University of Virginia’s Rotunda dome when Neal Curtis and Sam Lemley stopped. They looked at each other. And they decided they had to come up with a plan – immediately They walked into the school’s Alderman Library and promised they wouldn’t leave that night until they had found a way to save the old card catalogue.
The Washington Post

At first glance, the agenda for the Dec.17 meeting of the Orange County Board of Supervisors didn’t appear to be terribly exciting. Until Chairman Jim White added item 5C under new business: “termination agreement with the county administrator.” District 4 Supervisor Jim Crozier made a motion to execute the termination agreement of County Administrator Bryan David, and the motion passed unanimously. White later said it was a mutual agreement between the board and David, the administrator since 2014. While David notified department heads and direct-reports of the pending action in the days before the board meeting, White said most county staff expressed surprise at the decision and concern about the future. David confirmed county staff members were concerned for him and his well-being.“I assured them my severance would give me the capacity to find a job,” he said.
Orange County Review

stories of national interest

Newly unearthed documents show that the Food and Drug Administration failed to use its policing powers to make sure a program to curb improper prescribing of opioids was effective, researchers say. The lax oversight, they point out, occurred as the epidemic was growing and tens of thousands of people were dying from overdoses each year. In 2011, the FDA began asking the makers of OxyContin and other addictive long-acting opioids to pay for safety training for more than half the physicians prescribing the drugs, and to track the effectiveness of the training and other measures in reducing addiction, overdoses and deaths. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers, who relied on thousands of pages of internal FDA documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, found the agency repeatedly could not determine whether the companies’ safety strategies were working because of poor study designs, which the agency itself had approved.
Minneapolis Star Tribune

It’s the start of a new year and new decade — but the end of an era for the Newseum, which closed its doors for the last time Tuesday. Officials at the journalism museum announced early last year that it would close at the end of December due to financial struggles and that the 250,000-square-foot building on Pennsylvania Avenue would be sold to Johns Hopkins University. Over the past few weeks, hundreds of visitors have toured the Newseum’s seven floors, where the exhibits and artifacts will be de-installed and sent to a storage facility until a new permanent location for public viewing is found.
The Washington Times