Transparency News 1/26/17
Thursday, January 26, 2017
State and Local Stories
State and Local Stories
The House General Laws Subcommittee on FOIA will meet late this afternoon with a very full docket. VCOG is either in support of or neutral on most of them. It opposes HB2043, though. This bill would prohibit police departments from releasing the name of officers involved in shootings or excessive force before an investigation into the incident is complete. We believe this should be up to the individual departments, noting that there a few jurisdictions in Virginia (most notably Fairfax) that have policies that say the name should be released. A blanket prohibition goes too far.
We strongly support HB2143, which would allow VCOG and other third parties to conduct training that satisfies the FOIA officer’s requirement to get annual training. NOTE: VCOG will continue to do training regardless, but since literally hundreds of government employees have been attending our sessions, we just feel that the officers among them should get credit for it.
Here are the subcommittee members and their contact information if you care to share your opinion on any of the bills.
The Virginian-Pilot may cover the juvenile hearings of two teenagers charged in connection with a series of apparently random shootings – including two fatal – across the city, a judge ruled on Wednesday. The Pilot sought access after it was barred from attending a hearing in December involving the teens. It also successfully had an injunction lifted in another case where it was told not to publish an infant victim’s name. Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court Judge Randall Blow didn’t give The Pilot carte blanche. While he said it was “clearly a case of public interest,” he ordered The Pilot not to publish the names of any defendants, victims or civilian witnesses who are referenced during the proceedings involving the teens. Blow said The Pilot can publish what it wants until the hearing – currently set for Feb. 7 – and said it can continue after that to use any names it had previously published. Conrad Shumadine, The Pilot’s attorney, said he plans to appeal the judge’s order. He argued the ruling was unconstitutional and that there should be no restrictions on how the media covers a case of this magnitude.
Virginian-Pilot
The names of chemicals used to frack natural gas in Virginia would be public information under legislation backed by the oil and gas industry and moving forward at the statehouse. But under separate legislation, also from the industry, state regulations requiring companies to turn that information over to the state would evaporate unless the industry is able to protect secrets about the concentrations of those chemicals. House Bill 1678 would make the names of chemicals used in hyrdaulic fracturing wells subject to release under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. It would protect from release "the recipe," as an industry lobbyist put it, used to put those chemicals together in certain concentrations.
Daily Press
State Sen. J. Chapman Petersen, D-Fairfax City, filed a campaign finance bill that is unlikely to go far in the legislature. But that’s not the point. Senate Bill 1593 would prohibit members of the General Assembly or statewide office from accepting campaign money from public service corporations. The bill is aimed squarely at Dominion Virginia Power, which already was at odds with Petersen this legislative session over an unsuccessful bill he filed to restore state oversight of the energy monopoly’s base electricity rates.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
National Stories
A Kentucky judge has sided with the state's flagship university in an open-records dispute involving a student newspaper's dogged pursuit of documents it wants to review in a sexual harassment investigation of a former professor. In his ruling Monday, Fayette Circuit Judge Thomas Clark reversed a state attorney general's opinion in the case pitting the University of Kentucky and the Kentucky Kernel, the student newspaper. The AG's office said last year that the university had violated the state's open-records law by refusing to release documents on the professor's case to the newspaper on the Lexington campus. The university responded by suing the campus newspaper. Under state law, the AG's opinions can be appealed, but the attorney general cannot be named as a party in the suit. The university said its dispute was with Attorney General Andy Beshear, not the campus newspaper. In his ruling in favor of the university, Clark said the documents sought by the newspaper are "educational records" protected from disclosure by a federal student privacy law — the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
ABC News
At least six journalists were charged with felony rioting after they were arrested while covering the violent protests that took place just blocks from President Trump’s inauguration parade in Washington on Friday, according to police reports and court documents. The journalists were among 230 people detained in the anti-Trump demonstrations, during which protesters smashed the glass of commercial buildings and lit a limousine on fire.
New York Times
For decades, the private sector has been forced to jump through increasingly challenging hoops to do business with government. At the heart of this problem is the familiar request for proposal, a solicitation document intended to enable efficient evaluation of bids from potential vendors. The RFP process is meant to bring structure and transparency to the procurement process, while reducing risk through open requirements and discussion. For decades this has made sense, particularly for larger government organizations whose contracts can be very large and typically are open to negotiation. But with the rise of cloud-based technologies -- which have democratized technology of all kinds in both the public and private sectors -- and the ever-accelerating rate of technological innovation, the traditional RFP process is increasingly proving to be a poor tool for procurement, leaving public servants and citizens with few options, locked into predatory contracts and languishing years behind private-sector counterparts.
Governing
A few days before President Trump's inauguration, MuckRock opened up a Slack channel to help journalists better cover him and his administration. As of Wednesday, 250 people signed up. Most are journalists, about half from national newsrooms and half from local newsrooms around the country. "Anytime we have a new administration, there's turnover and there are changes," said Michael Morisy, MuckRock's co-founder. "I always think it's important for reporters to get an understating of what that new administration's priorities are. I think that's true no matter who's taking office."
Poynter
We strongly support HB2143, which would allow VCOG and other third parties to conduct training that satisfies the FOIA officer’s requirement to get annual training. NOTE: VCOG will continue to do training regardless, but since literally hundreds of government employees have been attending our sessions, we just feel that the officers among them should get credit for it.
Here are the subcommittee members and their contact information if you care to share your opinion on any of the bills.
The Virginian-Pilot may cover the juvenile hearings of two teenagers charged in connection with a series of apparently random shootings – including two fatal – across the city, a judge ruled on Wednesday. The Pilot sought access after it was barred from attending a hearing in December involving the teens. It also successfully had an injunction lifted in another case where it was told not to publish an infant victim’s name. Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court Judge Randall Blow didn’t give The Pilot carte blanche. While he said it was “clearly a case of public interest,” he ordered The Pilot not to publish the names of any defendants, victims or civilian witnesses who are referenced during the proceedings involving the teens. Blow said The Pilot can publish what it wants until the hearing – currently set for Feb. 7 – and said it can continue after that to use any names it had previously published. Conrad Shumadine, The Pilot’s attorney, said he plans to appeal the judge’s order. He argued the ruling was unconstitutional and that there should be no restrictions on how the media covers a case of this magnitude.
Virginian-Pilot
The names of chemicals used to frack natural gas in Virginia would be public information under legislation backed by the oil and gas industry and moving forward at the statehouse. But under separate legislation, also from the industry, state regulations requiring companies to turn that information over to the state would evaporate unless the industry is able to protect secrets about the concentrations of those chemicals. House Bill 1678 would make the names of chemicals used in hyrdaulic fracturing wells subject to release under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. It would protect from release "the recipe," as an industry lobbyist put it, used to put those chemicals together in certain concentrations.
Daily Press
State Sen. J. Chapman Petersen, D-Fairfax City, filed a campaign finance bill that is unlikely to go far in the legislature. But that’s not the point. Senate Bill 1593 would prohibit members of the General Assembly or statewide office from accepting campaign money from public service corporations. The bill is aimed squarely at Dominion Virginia Power, which already was at odds with Petersen this legislative session over an unsuccessful bill he filed to restore state oversight of the energy monopoly’s base electricity rates.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
National Stories
A Kentucky judge has sided with the state's flagship university in an open-records dispute involving a student newspaper's dogged pursuit of documents it wants to review in a sexual harassment investigation of a former professor. In his ruling Monday, Fayette Circuit Judge Thomas Clark reversed a state attorney general's opinion in the case pitting the University of Kentucky and the Kentucky Kernel, the student newspaper. The AG's office said last year that the university had violated the state's open-records law by refusing to release documents on the professor's case to the newspaper on the Lexington campus. The university responded by suing the campus newspaper. Under state law, the AG's opinions can be appealed, but the attorney general cannot be named as a party in the suit. The university said its dispute was with Attorney General Andy Beshear, not the campus newspaper. In his ruling in favor of the university, Clark said the documents sought by the newspaper are "educational records" protected from disclosure by a federal student privacy law — the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
ABC News
At least six journalists were charged with felony rioting after they were arrested while covering the violent protests that took place just blocks from President Trump’s inauguration parade in Washington on Friday, according to police reports and court documents. The journalists were among 230 people detained in the anti-Trump demonstrations, during which protesters smashed the glass of commercial buildings and lit a limousine on fire.
New York Times
For decades, the private sector has been forced to jump through increasingly challenging hoops to do business with government. At the heart of this problem is the familiar request for proposal, a solicitation document intended to enable efficient evaluation of bids from potential vendors. The RFP process is meant to bring structure and transparency to the procurement process, while reducing risk through open requirements and discussion. For decades this has made sense, particularly for larger government organizations whose contracts can be very large and typically are open to negotiation. But with the rise of cloud-based technologies -- which have democratized technology of all kinds in both the public and private sectors -- and the ever-accelerating rate of technological innovation, the traditional RFP process is increasingly proving to be a poor tool for procurement, leaving public servants and citizens with few options, locked into predatory contracts and languishing years behind private-sector counterparts.
Governing
A few days before President Trump's inauguration, MuckRock opened up a Slack channel to help journalists better cover him and his administration. As of Wednesday, 250 people signed up. Most are journalists, about half from national newsrooms and half from local newsrooms around the country. "Anytime we have a new administration, there's turnover and there are changes," said Michael Morisy, MuckRock's co-founder. "I always think it's important for reporters to get an understating of what that new administration's priorities are. I think that's true no matter who's taking office."
Poynter
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