Transparency News 12/27/13

Friday, December 27, 2013
 
State and Local Stories

 

HB 174: Adds a records exemption for administrative investigations conducted by a local inspector general or other local investigator appointed by the local governing body of any county, city, or town or a school board who by charter, ordinance, or statute has responsibility for conducting an investigation relating to allegations of fraud, waste, or abuse by any officer, employee, department, or program of the locality or school division.
Virginia General Assembly

HB 193: Removes the requirement that a public body approve by a majority vote of the members present at a meeting the remote participation in the meeting by one of its members. The bill instead requires the public body to approve by a majority vote a policy allowing participation of its members by electronic communication. Once adopted, the public body shall apply this policy uniformly to its entire membership, without regard to the identity of the member requesting remote participation or the matters that will be considered or voted on at the meeting.
Virginia General Assembly

While Gov.-elect Terry McAuliffe talks up ethics reform, three key state Democrats are staying mum about legislation that would prohibit political “retaliation” by legislators. State Sen. Tom Garrett, R-Louisa, has filed Senate Bill 12, which would add a 12th commandment to the state’s code of conduct for public officials. Garrett’s bill says no state legislator may “use his public position to retaliate or threaten to retaliate against any person for expressing views on matters of public concern or for exercising any right that is otherwise protected by law.”
Watchdog.org Virginia Bureau

Ethics reform, domestic-violence prevention, school-year starting dates, absentee voting and racy Internet images will be among topics of bills introduced by Northern Virginia’s legislative delegation in the 2014 General Assembly session, State Sen. Chap Petersen (D-34th) said ethics reform will be his top priority in the next session, which begins Jan. 8 and is expected to last 60 days. Petersen will introduce a bill that would end the General Assembly’s exemption from the state’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). “It would ensure that all of our dealings are as transparent as those in Fairfax County and other places,” he said, adding, “I think the FOIA bill is my No. 1 deal. I felt strongly that I never liked that exemption and never understood it. We need a culture change in Richmond.”
Sun Gazette

They weigh 73 tons. They unlock doors to history. And there's no room for them. A set of books containing corporate charters, wills, marriage licenses and deeds dating back to 1672 won't be making the trip from the old Norfolk circuit courthouse to its new digs. Instead, a company has been scanning the documents - 7.1 million images - and digitizing them. WR Systems, which has offices in Norfolk and Chesapeake, won a $1.3 million contract to do the work. The company has already done scanning for Norfolk Circuit Court, which is a digital office. Lawyers often file electronically, and files are available on computer, but not in hard copy. Title researchers who spend their days at the courthouse will be able to work anywhere with an Internet connection when the deed books project is finished, said Tom Larson, chief deputy to Circuit Court Clerk George Schaefer.
Virginian-Pilot

The city of Lynchburg launched a new interactive website to swap ideas and comments with the public. The site, www.lynchburgislistening.com, allows both city officials and citizens alike to introduce a topic and start a discussion. The project just went live this month and already features a host of topics, ranging from security cameras on Monument Terrace to the state of the local nightlife.
News & Advance

Historians and everyday Internet time wasters have long since become used to animated maps, covering topics ranging from a four-minute recap of the Civil War to the global distribution of tweets about Beyoncé’s new album. Now, modern bells and whistles have also come to Paullin’s atlas. A souped-up online version has just been released by the University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab, bringing what some historians still consider a work of unsurpassed scope into the age of the iPad. “Paullin’s maps show ordinary people making a living, moving across the landscape, worshiping at churches, voting in elections,” said Robert K. Nelson, the director of the Digital Scholarship Lab. “They covered so many topics that there’s really something for everyone.”
New York Times

National Stories

Connecticut state police plan to release a trove of documents on Friday tied to their investigation of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School last year that killed 20 children and six adults, the agency said on its website. The release comes about a month after the state Division of Criminal Justice released a report on the Newtown, Connecticut, massacre concluding that the gunman, Adam Lanza, 20, had acted alone, and that his motive may never be known. The material to be released online at 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT) on Friday "runs several thousand pages and has been redacted according to law," the state police announcement said.
Reuters

Every time the State Board of Dentistry, Physical Therapy Board or Pilotage Fee Commission meet, their respective members are authorized to receive $150 per business day in compensation. For the Local Government Environmental Facilities and Community Development Authority Board of Directors, it is $350 for attending each meeting. Many government boards and commissions cost the taxpayer money, and Louisiana has 485 of them -- more than any other Southern state, according to a Louisiana Legislative Auditors report released Monday morning.
Times-Picayune

Opposition is snowballing against a new policy aimed at how faculty and staff at Kansas universities use social media. Two national education groups have condemned the policy, arguing that it threatens the First Amendment rights and academic freedoms enjoyed by faculty. And faculty are increasingly voicing their opposition to the policy, most recently Monday when 40 distinguished professors at Kansas State University called for the policy to be repealed. The Regents adopted the policy after a University of Kansas journalism professor used Twitter to wish violence against the families of National Rifle Association members following a mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard. The policy gives a university’s top leader the power to suspend or fire any faculty member or staffer who improperly uses social media, including Facebook or Twitter.
Kansas City Star

With time running out before he’s set to report to federal prison, former lobbyist Kevin Ring wants a federal judge to unseal records in his Jack Abramoff scandal case to shine a light on the hidden workings of how prosecutors cut plea deals. The contents of that presentation aren’t divulged in the legal motion, but language in the filing suggests it’s likely to underscore the varied sentences awaiting defendants who go to trial compared to those who accept plea deals. “Release of this information would provide a considerable benefit, by bringing greater transparency to, and public scrutiny of, the daily workings of the criminal charging, plea and sentencing processes,” Ring’s attorney, Andrew Wise, wrote in the motion, which was filed on Monday.
Washington Times
 

Editorials/Columns

Vivian Paige, Virginian-Pilot: Obenshain showed that, despite all of the differences, the Virginia Way is alive and well. I applaud him for this and for the campaign that he ran. But the provision that would have allowed the joint body of the General Assembly to decide the election's outcome needs to be fixed.

Rebecca Schuman Slate, Roanoke Times: Last week, the Kansas Board of Regents, a nine-member governing body that controls six state universities and some 30 community and technical colleges, voted unanimously to approve a new policy that gives each institution's "chief executive officer" discretion to discipline or terminate any faculty or staff member who uses social media "improperly." Many in the higher education world denounce this move as a sweeping attack on academic freedom, one prompted by a tenured journalism professor writing a single (admittedly awful) tweet about the National Rifle Association. This new policy will effectively scare every employee of a Kansas university off the Internet. But should we be surprised, given the increasing resemblance of every public university in the United States to a Fortune 500 corporation, that professors and university staff are now being held to the same standards as private employees?