Transparency News 1/4/16

State and Local Stories

HB 272 (Del. Dave Albo)
Provides that a person who receives from another person any illegally obtained documents, records, or other information and who disseminates or publishes or causes to be disseminated or published such documents, records, or other information knowing that they were illegally obtained is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?161+sum+HB272

HB 280 (Del. R. Marshall)
Provides that any proposed plat, site plan, or plan of development that is officially submitted to the local planning commission for approval shall be considered a public record subject to disclosure under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?161+sum+HB280

HB 281 (Del. R. Marshall)
Removes any building permit submitted to a locality for final approval from an exclusion from the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that otherwise protects confidential proprietary records of a private business pursuant to a nondisclosure agreement made with a public body.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?161+sum+HB281

HB 282 (Del. R. Marshall)
Requires that a nondisclosure agreement by a public body be approved at an open meeting if it is to serve as the basis for an exclusion from the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) of confidential proprietary records of a private business. Such an approval must be renewed at least every three months at further open meetings if it is to continue to supply the basis for the FOIA exclusion.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?161+sum+HB282

Follow these and other access-related bills during the 2016 General Assembly session with VCOG's annual legislative chart.

The Amherst County Board of Supervisors and school board were united in discussing the timetable of Freedom of Information Act requests at a recent joint meeting. As written, the agency must respond to a request within five days. The concern initially voiced by County Administrator Dean Rodgers at the Dec. 10 meeting was the time and expense toll a FOIA request has on a small staff. “FOIA requests can sometimes eat us up,” Rodgers said. “… We generally provide all the information we can for free, although because of the small size of our staff, one FOIA request is an extra project. It pulls someone away from their work.”  Sen. Tom Garrett told the boards it is reasonable to ask for the extension in fielding FOIA requests. “…If we ask for 30 and get 10, I’m going to call it success,” Garrett said. “…He has indeed introduced that piece of legislation,” Tucker said. “It doesn’t have a bill number yet but he will pursue it and he has introduced it at 30 days.”
New Era Progress

At a news conference about Portsmouth’s spike in homicides – 11 in 2014to 27 lastyear – Mayor Kenny Wright was bombarded by media representatives who wanted to know why he hadn’t spoken to them in months. Wright said his silence wasn’t the right message, but at the same time, “we need to make sure we are not telling the wrong message and we are not engaging in this tabloid-type atmosphere.” “Everybody is posting all types of things, whether it’s social media, whether it’s on your (media) platforms, that are incorrect,” he said. “You guys have a responsibility to work with not only the people in government but also with the people in all the communities to again make sure you are not creating the news, you are putting the news out.” A media representative pointed out it was the public that demanded answers from him on Wednesday at a 40-person protest about homicides, led by local pastor Barry Randall. “This isn’t about protests,” Wright said. “This is about all of us. We are not here to point fingers.”
Virginian-Pilot


National Stories
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The state office responsible for helping Tennesseans gain access to public records and entrance to government meetings isn't keeping up with its workload — in some cases lagging more than a year behind in responding to citizens' requests for help, an audit released Wednesday found. The Office of Open Records Counsel is experiencing a "significant backlog in reviewing and responding to open records inquiries," the audit noted. The office's "inability to provide expeditious responses could impede the office's mission to provide critical information to citizens, media, and government offices regarding public records and open meetings." The backlog includes six requests that have not received a response for 361 or more days, 153 requests that have gone unanswered for at least six months, and 128 that have been waiting for at least three months.
The Tennesseean

The State Department released another 5,500 pages of emails from former secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private server on Thursday, pushing the total pages released so far to more than 40,000. The department has been releasing batches monthly since June to comply with a judge’s order that they be made public on a rolling basis until all 55,000 pages are released next month. With the New Year’s Eve batch, the total so far fell short of the order that State release 82% — roughly 45,000 pages — by the end of the year.
USA TODAY

The Iowa Public Information Board wants state lawmakers to appoint a study committee to review policy issues related to police body cameras, the board's executive director said. No federal laws govern the use of body cameras or say who may view the video. Consequently, a wide range of state policies are in place, some of which allow the public release of all footage and others that are more restrictive.
Des Moines Register

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner's official events calendar is a public record and his office is withholding too much of it from taxpayers, the Illinois attorney general's office said Wednesday. The state's public access bureau issued the opinion in favor of The Associated Press in its pursuit of details that are frequently redacted on Rauner's calendar. The Republican's office cannot black out information on the basis of security, internal policy debate or an attorney-client relationship, areas where the Illinois Freedom of Information Act allows a government agency to withhold records, public access attorney Joshua Jones said. The opinion could be challenged in court.
State Journal-Register

Employees and contractors at VA medical centers, clinics, pharmacies and benefit centers commit thousands of privacy violations each year and have racked up more than 10,000 such incidents since 2011, a ProPublica analysis of VA data shows. The breaches range from inadvertent mistakes, such as sending documents or prescriptions to the wrong people, to employees’ intentional snooping and theft of data. Not all concern medical treatment; some involve data on benefits and compensation. Many VA facilities and regional networks are chronic offenders, logging dozens of violations year after year.
ProPublica

In tiny towns like Gifford, S.C., the municipal government consists of very few people. A dozen employees, most of whom are unpaid and work part-time, see to the needs of the town’s 289 citizens. Here, the entire city council -- Alvin Murdaugh, Lindsay Strong, Leon Blake and Horney Mitchell -- stands in front of the town hall, a former family home that was donated to the city.
Governing