Transparency News 1/3/14

VCOG’s annual bill chart is up — just a handful of bills so far, but they’ll be added in the coming days.

HB310: Provides that state and local governmental agencies shallgrant first informer broadcasters access to an area affected by a disaster, emergency, or major disaster for the purposes of (i) disseminating news and public service and public safety information concerning the disaster, emergency, or major disaster and (ii) repairing, maintaining, or resupplying any facility necessary to the ability of the first informer broadcaster to acquire, produce, and transmit such news and information, unless granting such access would endanger public safety or inhibit recovery efforts or is otherwise inconsistent with state or federal law.
Virginia General Assembly

HB325: Provides that a person has a right to privacy in the content and metadata of the person's electronic communications, including emails, text messages, telephone calls, location data, mobile or cellular phone signals, or other forms of electronic communications.
Virginia General Assembly

SB119: Requires the State Corporation Commission to make available for public inspection records that are related to matters related to the Commission's operational responsibilities and operational functions, including revenues, expenditures, financial management and budgetary practices, personnel policies and practices, and procurement policies and practices. Disclosure of the records is not required if the records are otherwise covered by applicable legal privileges; disclosure of such records could threaten the safety or security of the Commission’s employees, physical plant or information technology assets or data; or the records are not publicly available from other public entities.
Virginia General Assembly

SB137: Makes it a Class 1 misdemeanor for the owner of a website to both post an arrest photo and solicit, request, or accept money for removing the photograph.
Virginia General Assembly

SB143: Creates the Virginia Conflict of Interest and Ethics Advisory Council to furnish advisory opinions, conduct training seminars and educational programs, and publish such educational materials and other appropriate information regarding the State and Local Government Conflict of Interests Act and the General Assembly Conflicts of Interests Act. The Council is required to report annually on its activities and findings, including recommendations for any legislative changes.
Virginia General Assembly

All systems are still go at Wallops Island for Tuesday's rocket launch to the International Space Station after a faulty ammonia pump caused multiple delays last month and forced two spacewalks to replace it. NASA says it plans to live stream the Antares lift-off as Orbital Sciences Corp. boosts a Cygnus spacecraft on its first official commercial resupply run to the ISS.
Daily Press

Within 10 minutes of its first meeting of 2014, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors on Thursday appointed Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) to the Transportation and Land Use Committee.  Delgaudio was stripped of any committee power in July 2013 following a grand jury investigation into whether he misused public assets. The grand jury did not bring forward an indictment, but issued a scathing report of Delgaudio's behavior in office.  In addition to the ban on committee assignments, Delgaudio was censured by his colleagues on the all-Republican board, and the Sterling district office funds were transferred to a corporate board account. It appears the committee prohibition was strictly for 2013.
Loudoun Times-Mirror

Virginia taxpayers may continue to foot the bill for two private law firms representing Gov. Robert F. McDonnell and his staff in connection with state and federal criminal investigations, even after the governor leaves office Jan. 11. A spokesman for Attorney Gen. Ken Cuccinelli II said Thursday that the appointments could continue after McDonnell’s term ends in nine days. Cuccinelli, who would ordinarily represent the governor, appointed the firms in his place after determining that he had a conflict of interest.
Washington Post

National Stories

The Kansas Board of Regents said Tuesday that it wants to take another look at a newly approved policy that could result in university faculty and staff being fired over improper use of social media. Because of concerns that have been expressed, the board's chairman, Fred Logan, is requesting that a group be formed to review the policy, according to a news release from the regents, who govern the six state universities. The policy, which was devised in the wake of criticism about a journalism professor's anti-NRA tweet, allows a university CEO to discipline employees, up to termination, for social media communications that affect the university's ability to carry out its functions.
Witchita Eagle

It takes a special kind of politician to end his term by signing a resignation letter "chaq DaHjaj QaQ jaj paj." That's "maybe today is a good day (to) resign." In Klingon. David Waddell, a city councilman for Indian Trail, N.C., decided to send his resignation letter to Mayor Michael Alvarez written in Klingon as an inside joke. "Folks don't know what to think of me half the time," Waddell told The Charlotte Observer. "So I might as well have one last laugh."
CNET News
 

Editorials/Columns

Times-Dispatch: Lynchburg has come up with an idea worthy of stealing. The town has set up a website where, the News & Advance reports, “both city officials and citizens alike (can) introduce a topic and start a discussion.” Lynchburgislistening.com combines the town hall and the suggestion box in a format appropriate to the digital age. Users can post their own ideas, respond to those of others and vote for their favorites. Collaboration often produces results bigger than one-way communication from the top down — or the bottom up. Lynchburg is on to something, and we urge other localities to take the idea and run with it.

Times-Dispatch: Legend has it that Hollywood actress Gracie Allen once was given a small alligator as a gag. Unsure what to do with it, she put it in her bathtub before heading out. When she came home, she found a note from her maid: “Dear Miss Allen: Sorry, but I have to quit. I don’t work in houses where there is an alligator. I’d have told you this when I took on, but I never thought it would come up.” Virginia state Sen. Tom Garrett has filed the sort of bill that could be called a Gracie. The measure would add an item to the code of conduct for Virginia public officials, stipulating that no lawmaker can “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.”

Roger Simon, Politico: Today, anybody with access to the Internet can be a journalist. And keeping a candidate away from credentialed reporters does not solve as many problems as it used to. What really got candidates in trouble in the past two presidential campaigns? Comments made by candidates who assumed no reporters were in the room.