Transparency News 1/30/15
State and Local Stories
Yesterday....
A House education subcommittee advanced one bill requiring the Department of Education to post information/guidelines on FERBPA, and another one requiring school boards to get annual training on FOIA, among other things.
The House Transportation Committee advanced the bill to reform the public-private partnership process. An additional public comment periods has been added.
The Senate Agriculture Committee unanimously reported a bill to legalize the farming of industrial hemp (VCOG argued against a blanket FOIA exemption for licensee information).
The FOIA subcommittee of House General Laws referred two FOIA bills to the FOIA Council for further study: one that would allow a court to void an action taken at a meeting where certain public notice provisions weren’t followed; the other related to the working papers exemption and university presidents.
The House Commerce & Labor Committee shot down two bills (both on a voice vote where votes are not recorded): one would subject utilities to FOIA when the exercise the power of eminent domain (see below), and one would require the State Corporation Commission to make publicly available the public comments they receive on policy matters.
And there was this:
The state's prisons and one of the most powerful politicians in the state Senate are arguing for a bill that critics say could keep any information about executions secret. The bill also says information about the drugs and equipment used in executions and the firms that supply the drugs could be kept out of any lawsuits. The measure was meant to protect the firms that mix up the so-called "cocktails" of drugs Virginia uses to execute people, said state Sen. Richard Saslaw, D-Springfield, the Senate minority leader. "When we use the electric chair, we don't give the name of the guy who pulled the switch," he told the Senate subcommittee on health professions, adding that his measure just extends that to the companies that put together the three drugs used in executions. But the wording Saslaw proposed is so broad that it covers everything to do with executions, said Craig Merritt, a Richmond lawyer whose practice focuses on Freedom of Information Act and First Amendment issues. Merritt spoke on behalf of the Virginia Press Association. Saslaw dismissed criticism of his bill as simply objections from death penalty opponents. Those on death row, he added "have had a hell of lot more rights protected than the people they killed." (The bill was referred from this subcommittee to the Senate Courts of Justice Committee.)
Daily Press
The push to open up records on projects like the Atlantic Coast Pipeline died in the House of Delegates on Thursday. House Bill 1696 was killed in committee on a near-unanimous voice vote. The bill, introduced by Del. Dickie Bell, would have made public utilities subject to sunshine laws on projects where the company is allowed to exercise eminent domain. “We have an opportunity to make government and public utilities a little more accountable to the people, and I think that’s a good thing.” “I think this legislation has many unintended consequences that would occur if it were enacted,” said Brentley Archer, business policy director for Columbia Gas. “I also think it would lead to a significant number of new frivolous lawsuits. I just think it’s not in the best interest of the commonwealth.” “The people are entitled to know all the facts that support the use of the power of eminent domain,” said Henry Howell, an eminent domain attorney representing property owners in Nelson and other counties.
News & Advance
It may be tougher for sneaky state lawmakers to tuck things into the budget bill after this year. Legislation from Republican Delegate John O’Bannon and Republican Sen. Ralph Smith would open up the budgeting process a little more by requiring special reports for any items tucked into the final budget bill for nonstate agencies, weren’t included in a general appropriation bill as passed by the House or Senate, or simply failed at some point along the lawmaking process. Think of it as taking a highlighter to anything slipped into the budget at the last minute. Plenty of people have worried about lawmakers “legislating through the budget,” O’Bannon said. The more transparency the better, said Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government. “The more comprehensive the information and the more advance notice that is given of the budget, the better it is for the public, the business community and the advocacy community,” she said. “All Virginians are entitled to know how funds are being spent and prioritized.”
Watchdog.org Virginia Bureau
Lawyers for the city of Richmond argued in court Thursday that documents about the departure of former top city official Byron C. Marshall are exempt from public disclosure because the city was looking to settle an employment dispute. The city attorneys didn’t reveal any new information about the nature of that dispute. But the public acknowledgement of a conflict, brought out as part of the city’s legal defense against a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, raises more questions about the circumstances of the sudden exit last fall of the official who had overseen the city’s daily operations for five years. Perhaps the most interesting legal question arising from the suit is whether the confidentiality agreements signed by some City Council members can be withheld from public view under the city’s argument that they classify as personnel records and material covered by attorney-client privilege. Hall said the city “has a right to resolve separation disputes” confidentially. Biss countered that the city never clearly defined the attorney-client relationship it sought to invoke. The city hired an outside lawyer to oversee Marshall’s exit, and several council members refused to sign the agreement. Hall said the client is the entire city government, which includes the City Council. Biss argued that the city can’t simply invoke the privilege for anything involving lawyers.
Times-Dispatch
The new school superintendent will be paid $31,000 more than originally negotiated after a split School Board vote Thursday. Elie Bracy III will earn $215,000 in base pay when he starts next month. In December, the board unanimously approved a contract to hire Bracy for $184,000. The board voted on the contract before a legal review by attorney Sam Meekins, who consults the board when requested. Meekins described the first contract as more of a letter of intent. After the review, Meekins’ office noticed problems, so the board renegotiated terms related to health insurance and retirement benefits, he said. The board also negotiated housing and moving costs.
Virginian-Pilot
Hanover citizens are one step closer to being able to watch board of supervisors’ meetings from anywhere with Internet access. Jan. 20, the board’s rules committee chose to recommend that supervisors move forward with streaming their meetings on the web. County staff presented a $26,000 proposal to the committee last Tuesday, which included the cost of three cameras. stem would allow the public to see the meeting from different angles and to watch speakers while they’re talking. “It allows much more flexibility and smoother transitions from speakers,” said John Budesky, deputy county administrator. The total cost also includes hardware and installation, a board meeting operator and a planning commission operator. There would also be some maintenance cost for upkeep, which could total $4,000 each year. s decided that they would only recommend going ahead with streaming only board of supervisors’ meetings for now. They had originally planned on having live streams of the planning commission meetings too, but decided that’ll come later.
Herald-Progress
National Stories
A transparency project originally conceived by students in the UNC School of Media and Journalism's Reese News Lab was awarded a $50,000 award to improve transparency in the N.C. General Assembly. Capitol Hound started as a student project in the Reese News Lab to help the public understand what is happening in the state legislature. The students created a keyword searchable transcript and email alert service by using audio recordings of General Assembly hearings. Subscribers can set specific topic or keyword alerts to keep track of subjects that they are interested in. The students ran a pilot test of the Capitol Hound service during the General Assembly's 2014 short session.North Carolina Open Government Coalition
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has sent a letter to Texas House Speaker Joe Straus asking whether state Rep. Molly White, R-Belton, violated ethics rules by instructing her staff to ask Muslim visitors to her office to declare their allegiance to the United States. "Our ethics question is: Has Rep. White violated any House rules in creating such an internal office policy that is selectively being enforced to discriminate against certain religious minorities trying to meet with her or her staff?" the letter asks. "Are House members prohibited from making constituents take oaths before meeting with their elected representatives or House staff?"
Governing
U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg has fined two whistleblowers in Atlanta for contacting members of the media during a five-year period while the suit was under seal. Whistleblowers Victor Bibby and Brian Donnelly, mortgage brokers at U.S. Financial Services Inc., discussed the case confidentially with FOX investigative reporters nearly four years after they initially filed their complaint but a year before the case was unsealed. Their punishment, imposed in a January 5 order, is to pay a $1.61 million fine. The order was first reported by the Atlanta legal newspaper The Daily Report. Attorneys for the whistleblowers argued, and First Amendment advocates agree, that the fine is extremely high, especially given that the government extended the sealing of the case for an unusually long five years while supposedly deciding whether to intervene, combined with the fact that Bibby and Donnelly had a secrecy agreement with the journalists that lasted until the case was unsealed.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence has told the Indiana press corps that he plans to cancel “Just IN,” a proposed state-run news source that some feared would be used as an end-around the press. Maureen Hayden, Indiana statehouse bureau chief for Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., tweeted that Pence ordered the website shut down.
Poynter
In a startlingly indiscriminate classification action that officials termed "unprecedented," U.S. General John F. Campbell, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, ordered the classification of a broad range of previously public information concerning operations in that country. How has the $25 million authorized by Congress for women in the Afghan army been used? What are the definitions of the terms "unavailable" and "present for duty"? What is the total amount of funding that the U.S. has expended on salaries for the Afghan National Police? The answers to those questions, and more than a hundred others that had formerly been subject to public disclosure, are now considered classified information. The newly classified data was withheld from disclosure in the public version of the latest quarterly report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) that was released today.
Secrecy News
Pop quiz: Who invented the telephone? If you said “Alexander Graham Bell,” but pronounced his middle name “gram,” you’re slightly off. The inventor, who hailed from Scotland with stops in London and Canada, pronounced Graham “gray-ham,” with a subtle emphasis on the “gray.” “It seems a lot of us have been saying it wrong,” says Carlene Stephens, curator of the National Museum of American History’s new exhibit, “Hear My Voice: Alexander Graham Bell and the Origins of Recorded Sound.” That was one of many discoveries made by a team of curators and particle physicists when they played an 1885 cardboard and wax disc in 2012. The only known recording of Bell’s voice, the record (which will be on display) captured the inventor as he counted to 40 and then rattled off some larger numbers. After almost five minutes, he concludes the test by saying, “in witness whereof, hear my voice, Alexander Graham Bell.”
Washington Post
Editorials/Columns
Del. Dickie Bell, News Virginian
Virginia lawmakers are seeking to restrict how local law-enforcement agencies store data from license-plate readers — a move prompted by revelations about dragnet surveillance around the commonwealth. Police departments have been recording the movement of countless vehicles, without any suspicion of wrongdoing, and storing it for months — even after former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli admonished them not to. Even if they succeed, the legislators’ efforts could be pointless. According to an investigation by The Wall Street Journal, federal authorities have been building their own nationwide database “to track in real time the movement of vehicles around the U.S.” through a program “that scans and stores hundreds of millions of records about motorists,” including “time, direction, and location. ... Many devices also record visual images of drivers and passengers, which are sometimes clear enough for investigators to confirm identities.”
Times-Dispatch
A proposal to live-stream Hanover County government meetings online is leaving the committee level for a full vote by the board of supervisors next month. It appears as though former chairman and Henry District supervisor Sean Davis’ promise that his proposal wouldn’t die in committee has come true. We applaud the board members on the rules committee for furthering this initiative, which we hope will greatly expand citizen engagement and government transparency in Hanover County. We also encourage the full board to pass this measure when it comes to them in February.
Herald-Progress
