Transparency News 1/23/15

Yesterday, the House General Laws FOIA subcommittee advance three bills, all unanimously. All three had been run past VCOG prior to their introduction, and two had gone through the FOIA Council. Of the latter, one deals with extending the VCU Health System’s limited open meetings exemption to VCU’s Board of Visitors when it is talking about health system business. The other deals with records of certain health care entities that are exempt from the litigation discovery process on the private sector side.

The first bill related to discussions of resource management plan records that are currently exempted from FOIA. VCOG did not oppose this in concept, as there are many instances in FOIA where a records exemption has a companion meetings exemption. As written, the bill would’ve covered more records that the existing exemption. Del. Scott agreed to subcommittee amendments to narrow the scope.

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Augusta County's Board of Supervisors likely violated Virginia's open meeting law last week when members met in a secret session and discussed its negotiations to get Staunton to pay for courthouse renovations and made plans to move the official seat of county government.Supervisors went behind closed doors, citing a provision of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act allowing discussion of purchase or sale of real property, although there's no hint that an actual sale or purchase were discussed. Officials actually discussed failed negotiations that attempted to get Staunton to pay for Augusta Courthouse repairs and then, after an informal vote, directed county staff put the issue before county voters. County officials believe they acted entirely within the law. In justifying the county's actions, Coffield pointed to Staunton's City Council's parallel closed session over the negotiation. But the key difference is that Staunton met under a FOIA exemption allowing public bodies to meet to consult with their attorney over "specific legal matters."
News Leader

In the days just after “A Rape on Campus” was published, the story’s shoddiness wasn’t widely acknowledged. On Nov. 25, a Florida man wrote a brief e-mail to University of Virginia Dean of Students Allen Groves and to Associate Dean of Students Nicole P. Eramo:
My daughter is five years old, and is very bright and articulate. I will see to it she never attends UV A. The behavior which tacitly permitted to occur on campus by school leadership is appalling to me.
Michael
Lake Mary, FL
That bit of rather direct language comes from university documents retrieved through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The documents consist of more than 150 pages of e-mails that passed through University of Virginia Dean of Students Allen Groves over nearly two weeks after the Rolling Stone hit the Internet. They depict a university administrator hustling to keep up with the fast-moving response to Rolling Stone’s story, dealing with hard-edged e-mails from detractors and expressing skittishness over how the apparent scandal would affect his standing with other organizations. Beyond those implications, the correspondence shows that when a national magazine decides to pursue biased reporting on an explosive issue with virtually no sourcing, people notice and there are consequences.
Washington Post

A Virginia Beach legislator is proposing that Dominion Virginia Power be exempt from state regulation of base rates until 2020 while freezing the rates for about five years. The proposal has drawn criticism from a consumer advocate and state Attorney General Mark Herring, who argue it would severely weaken public oversight of the state's dominant electric utility. State Sen. Frank Wagner said he wants to require Dominion to freeze base rates until 2020 because Virginia will soon be subject to new, costly U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards for carbon emissions.
Virginian-Pilot

Virginia school board members may be required to complete more training next year, if legislation proposed by Del. Steve Landes, R-Weyers Cave, is adopted. Landes presented a bill last week to enhance the criteria for member’s professional development [including annual FOIA training], at the guidance of the state Board of Education. The bill, HB 1962, which is now in the House Education Committee, would not take effect until July 1, 2016, if passed. It amends existing legislation to “bring a little bit more specificity and ensure that member of school boards are getting that training,” Landes said Wednesday.
Daily News Record

National Stories

For one state lawmaker, allowing political candidates to keep their home addresses out of the public record would help ensure their safety. For another, allowing former judges to keep their addresses and phone numbers out of public records would accomplish the same. Three bills introduced so far during this legislative session aim to make what currently is public information private, including a measure that would keep the names of lottery winners secret for 90 days to give those people time to prepare for the world knowing. While lawmakers pushing for such changes often say safety is their main concern, Leonard Downie Jr., vice president at large of The Washington Post, said bills of this nature can wind up limiting transparency and inhibiting the public’s ability to hold the government accountable.
Cronkite News

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy today filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in Midland County Circuit Court against the Michigan Liquor Control Commission over illegal fees the government agency attempted to charge the Mackinac Center for copying spreadsheet data onto a flash drive. On Nov. 7, 2014, Fiscal Policy Director Michael LaFaive visited the MLCC offices to do research on the issue of “post and hold” rules for alcohol prices. He was told that 2.5 months’ worth of data he was seeking existed on a spreadsheet and that he could have that data if he could provide a USB flash drive. LaFaive was eventually told by the MLCC’s FOIA coordinator that his request would require a cost estimate and a deposit before it could be processed. LaFaive responded via email, asking “MLCC must do an estimate to ascertain the cost of sticking a thumb drive in your computer?” LaFaive also reiterated that the only data he was seeking was that which he’d already been told existed electronically. The MLCC responded, stating LaFaive’s request had been granted, and that the estimated cost of processing the request would be $1,550.22. A 50 percent deposit was required before the MLCC would proceed. The Mackinac Center chose not to pay. An attached invoice stated the costs included $50.22 for 1.5 hours of an employee’s time (an hourly rate of $33.48) for “locating and duplicating” the requested data, and $1,500 for copying 6,000 pages at 25 cents per page.
Mackinac Center

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Thursday temporarily blocked a county prosecutor from filing charges against the state attorney general, Kathleen G. Kane, who has been accused by a grand jury of perjury and other offenses in connection with the disclosure of an investigation to a Philadelphia newspaper. The court said the district attorney in Montgomery County, Risa Vetri Ferman, could not file charges against Ms. Kane as outlined in a grand jury document released Wednesday, pending further order of the court. Ms. Ferman, who has not commented on the case, would be the prosecutor to bring any charges against Ms. Kane based on the grand jury report, which also recommended charges of false swearing, official oppression and obstruction.
New York Times

Federal prosecutors made their final pitch to jurors Thursday that former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling gave classified information to a New York Times reporter, while defense attorneys shot back that their client was perhaps the least likely of several possible sources the journalist used. Jurors will begin debating the largely circumstantial case Thursday afternoon; they need only to receive instructions from the judge. Ultimately, the panel must decide whether Sterling, 47, of Missouri gave national defense information to New York Times reporter James Risen for a particular chapter in Risen’s 2006 book, “State of War.” The decision might not be an easy one, as there seems to be little in the way of direct proof that Sterling turned over information that was supposed to be kept secret.
Washington Post

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