Transparency News 12/24/15

State and Local Stories

A Richmond circuit judge ruled that the City of Hopewell erred when it held a closed-door meeting to discuss who would be the city’s next mayor and vice-mayor.
Read the opinion on VCOG’s website

The House of Delegates will pay $1,566,280.29 for legal services incurred in an unsuccessful challenge to 12 House districts, now that Clerk Paul Nardo has finished processing the lawyers’ invoice. The payment comes on top of $84,205.50 paid in March. A panel of three federal judges dismissed a lawsuit charging that the House played racial politics in drawing lines for 12 districts.
Daily Press

Attorneys for the magazine Rolling Stone are asking a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit filed by three former fraternity members and University of Virginia students in relation to a retracted article that implicated the fraternity in an alleged gang rape. The three men say they suffered “vicious and hurtful attacks” because the inaccuracies in the November 2014 article “created a simple and direct way to match the alleged attackers” in the assault. George Elias IV, Stephen Hadford and Ross Fowler filed the suit in U.S. District Court in New York. The magazine is countering that the three former students were never named in the article and that “no reasonable reader would understand (the men) to be the perpetrators of the attack described in the article.”
Daily Progress

When Anderson Bonilla became editor in chief of the yearbook at his Virginia high school, he decided he wanted to show student life as it really is instead of the glossy, idealized version of high school so often memorialized. There is a feature about Mount Vernon High School’s immigrant students, and another showing classmates who are learning English. There is a page that gives tips on how to help students cope with grief after losing a friend. And there are two full pages dedicated to showing the lives of teenage mothers who attend the school. But a photo of one of the pregnant teens baring her stomach has ignited a fight between student leaders who want to show “the real world” and school officials worried about how it might be viewed by students later in life. According to Bonilla, Principal Esther Manns has said she will not allow the photos of Hannah Talbert, a junior at the school, to be featured in the yearbook.
Washington Post


National Stories
​
The chairman of the D.C. Council said Wednesday that he intends to make the District’s deals with vendors and land developers more transparent by requiring them to disclose campaign donations to city officials. “The big issue for me is improving the council’s oversight function,” Chairman Phil Mendelson, at-large Democrat, told The Washington Times. “I want a better chance of a fair deal for the District.”
Washington Times

Defense Secretary Ash Carter has moved to block the release of about 2,000 photos of detainees allegedly abused in U.S. military custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he parted with his predecessors by agreeing to release about 200 such photos that have been under wraps for years, according to a new court filing. Carter signed a certification last month invoking his authority under a 2009 law to refuse disclosure of the photos under the Freedom of Information Act. The legal provision was passed after President Barack Obama, who initially acquiesced to release of the images, did an about-face and called on Congress to pass legislation to keep them secret.
Politico