Transparency News 12/9/14
State and Local Stories
For Daniel Longest, freedom of speech means unrestricted access to knowledge. The Patrick Henry High School senior said a new requirement for teachers to obtain permission from principals and parents to use a list of controversial books and films is harming the quality of his education. This new requirement was detailed in a memo sent from school administrators to school staff members last month. “Putting books on a controversial list ... is restricting knowledge,” Longest said. “The government is getting in between what the teachers want to teach and students want to learn.” Longest was to share his opinions at yesterday’s Hanover County School Board meeting, where officials will present a comprehensive review of the board’s policy on controversial materials. The board’s current controversial-issues policy states that “teachers should strive to present all sides of a given issue to students in a dispassionate manner.”
Times-Dispatch
On Friday, Rolling Stone’s managing editor posted a letter to readers saying “discrepancies” had been found in Jackie’s story and Rolling Stone’s trust in her “was misplaced.” Shortly thereafter, Phi Kappa Psi issued a statement rebutting several key aspects of the account, including the claims that a fraternity member met Jackie, then a first-year, while working as a lifeguard at a university pool and later took her to a date function at the house off Madison Bowl. The fraternity said none of its members was listed on a roster of employees at the UVa Aquatic and Fitness Center and there was no date function at the fraternity that night. The Daily Progress is awaiting a final response from UVa to Freedom of Information Act requests filed two weeks ago for records related to those points in the story. Richmond attorney Ben Warthen, a former Board of Visitors member and Phi Psi alum who has been working with the fraternity in response to the allegations, has not responded to repeated requests from The Daily Progress for copies of the Aquatic Center records and a list of fraternity members for the period in question. He declined to comment Monday.
Daily Progress
Amid the national debate over police use of deadly force, a Fairfax County incident remains under scrutiny by federal investigators, who say local law enforcement "withheld materials" in the case. A discussion on law enforcement transparency with Washington Post columnist Tom Jackman and Dana Schrad, executive director of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police.
Kojo Nnamdi Show
National Stories
One of the last acts of retiring Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) was holding up a broadly supported bill to reform the Freedom of Information Act, warning Friday that it could harm consumer protections. Over the weekend, transparency advocates and bill supporters stirred, pushing Rockefeller to change his mind. And on Monday, as Congress’ lame duck session drew to a close, he relented. The Senate unanimously approved the FOIA Improvement Act, sending a bill intended to create a “presumption of openness” among government agencies to the House, which passed a similar bill earlier this year. Rockefeller’s change of heart boosted transparency advocates and the bill’s sponsors — but he wouldn’t clearly explain why he dropped his objections during an interview Monday. The outgoing West Virginian emphatically denied feeling the pressure as the lone senator holding the bill up (“that would never bother me”) but gave a cryptic answer on why he altered his position. “It’s sort of the internal workings of the Senate,” he said, admitting that he hadn’t shed much light on his thinking. “It’s an indecipherable phrase which I’ve given you.”Politico
The Greene County (Tennessee) Industrial Development Board of Greeneville and Greene County is arguing in a lawsuit that the Open Meetings Act does not require that citizens be able to hear deliberations of a governing body at public meetings, only that they be given the opportunity to be present. The arguments are found in filings to try to dismiss a complaint made by 47 people, many who live or own property along the Nolichucky River, who say that the Industrial Development Board violated the law when it held a July 18 meeting, but “purposefully or negligently prevented (citizens in attendance) from hearing deliberations…” The citizens note that board members “conducted deliberations while sitting around a table, a number of them with their backs turned to the public.” The room was equipped with microphones, but they were not used. When one member of the public, Eddie Overholt, asked the board to speak up so citizens could hear, he was ejected from the meeting (video here), and arrested and charged with disrupting a public meeting and resisting arrest. Charges were later dropped.
Tennessee Coalition for Open Government
Some of the last video footage taken of the late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs shown in antitrust court last week may see the light of day after lawyers representing the Associated Press, Bloomberg and CNN filed a motion with the court to have it released. "Given the substantial public interest in the rare posthumous appearance of Steve Jobs in this trial, there simply is no interest that justifies restricting the public's access to his video deposition," attorney Thomas Burke, who is representing all three media organizations, wrote in the filing Monday. The plaintiff's lawyers in the case were asked by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, on Apple's request, to treat the video as "regular testimony," meaning it can be viewed and reported by those attending court but cannot be shown elsewhere. Judge Rogers did not "seal" the evidence, however, leaving open the possibility it may be made available at a later date.
CNET News
Louis Brandeis famously characterized states as laboratories for democracy, but cities could be called labs for innovation or new practices. With far fewer resources than states or the federal government and responsibilities to people on a daily basis, cities have to be scrappy and creative when it comes to delivering services and running their operations. Having less to spend and fewer workers means cities try to automate where possible. And because more people deal with city government directly -- whether it’s sending their kids to public schools, riding public transit or having their trash picked up -- the need to perform effectively has far greater importance. When Government Technology magazine (produced by Governing’s parent company, e.Republic, Inc.) published its annual Digital Cities Survey, the results provided an interesting look at how local governments are using technology to improve how they deliver services, increase production and streamline operations: (1) Open data; (2) “Stat” programs and data analytics; (3) Online citizen engagement; and (4) Geographic information systems.
Governing
Editorials/Columns
If you possess the history of Hanover County schools, you should studiously avoid anything remotely resembling censorship. After all, this was the school district that in January 1966 banned Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” about a white Southern lawyer, Atticus Finch, and his defense of a black man unjustly charged with rape. The book was deemed “immoral” and “improper for our children to read.” This turn of events moved Lee to pen a letter to the editor of The Richmond News Leader. “Recently I have received echoes down this way of the Hanover County School Board’s activities, and what I’ve heard makes me wonder if any of its members can read,” she wrote. Indeed, this book ban took place when segregation, discrimination and racial strife were still prevalent in a Virginia. Anyone with a problem with the morality and propriety of “To Kill a Mockingbird” absorbed all the wrong lessons from the book. In Virginia, it should have been required reading. Today, nearly five decades later, it is a film that has raised hackles in Hanover.
Michael Paul Williams, Richmond Times-Dispatch
