Transparency News 1/9/15

Friday, January 9, 2015  

State and Local Stories

SB893: PETERSEN -- Bill removes working papers and correspondence exemption in 2.2-3705.7(2) for heads of public colleges/universities.

HB1618: SCOTT -- Bill creates an open meeting exemption for discussion of records exempted by FOIA of a Resource Management Plan Technical Review Committee, a Soil and Water Conservation District Board, a review committee of the Department of Conservation and Recreation, or the Virginia Soil and Water Conservation Board.

A judge has rejected a request from news organizations to allow cameras at the upcoming attempted murder trial of Jesse Matthew in Fairfax County. At a hearing Thursday, a judge ruled that Virginia law does not allow cameras in cases concerning sexual assaults. Prosecutors and defense lawyers both had opposed the media's request.
Free Lance-Star

Federal agents have subpoenaed thousands of pages of records detailing daily activities of the Lynchburg Fire Department for the last several years in connection with an investigation into the theft of stolen painkillers, officials confirmed Thursday. The administrative subpoena allowed Drug Enforcement Administration agents to seize fire station logbooks, in which stations record information including roll-call lists, times and locations of dispatches, when vehicles are washed and repaired and notes to other shifts. The subpoena — which is not available for public viewing — was issued Dec. 19.
News & Advance

Barbara Hudson, the county resident who filed a lawsuit against the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors over board-led sectarian prayers, has filed another motion asking for additional money to cover legal fees incurred by the case. In a motion filed by her attorney on Thursday, Rebecca Glenberg with the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia asked that her client be awarded more than $20,000 to cover additional attorneys’ fees and expenses, according to the motion. In December, Pittsylvania County filed a motion through its attorney, Bill Stanley, to request that the U.S. District Court in Danville dissolve or modify its injunction keeping the board from opening meetings with prayer. On Thursday, Stanley filed a renewal of that motion. The motion asks that the permanent injunction issued by the court be dissolved or modified. The injunction only permitted those prayers that weren’t considered a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause “to be utilized as a part of any opening prayer or invocation by the Board during its meetings, but in doing so the Court ordered that the Board ‘must strive to be nondenominational’ so long as that is reasonably possible — it should send a signal of welcome rather than exclusion,” the motion stated. Stanley argues in the motion that the injunction only dealt with the content of the prayer and not the process by which the “prayer giver was chosen.”
Register & Bee

If two Virginia lawmakers have their way, police won’t be able to indefinitely store data collected by automatic license plate readers. Still, their compromise isn’t sitting well with everyone. Democratic state Sen. Chap Petersen and Republican Delegate Richard Anderson are proposing legislation limiting the retention of that data to seven days. Petersen said he hopes it balances the issues of privacy and security, but permitting seven days of data retention is less than many police agencies want and more time than privacy groups want.
Watchdog.org Virginia Bureau

Braving freezing temperatures, about three dozen protesters marched outside Fairfax County police headquarters Thursday morning to demand information and accountability in the August 2013 police killing of John B. Geer in Springfield. Most did not know Geer, a 46-year-old kitchen contractor and father of two, but they expressed disgust that 16 months had passed without a decision on whether to charge Adam D. Torres, the officer who shot Geer, and that very little information about the circumstances has been released. “I feel like I could be next,” said Keith Harmon of Mount Vernon. The protest was organized by “Justice for John Geer,” launched on Facebook by Woodbridge resident Mike Curtis. Also supporting the group was “Virginia Cop Block,” which Richmond resident Nathan Cox started to call for more accountability and transparency in police and government.
Washington Post

National Stories

On January 6, 2015, United States Magistrate Judge Michael A. Hammer recommended that Union County pay over $40,000 in attorney fees and costs to a Cranford activist whose freedom of speech was "chilled" by the County's demand that she stop using the County Seal on her public access cable television show. Manner's decision is on-line here. Activist Tina Renna's television show, “Union County Citizen’s Forum," which is often critical of the Union County Board of Freeholders, displayed a graphic depicting a light shining on the Seal of Union County.  The County applied for a trademark on its seal and was denied.  Despite the denial, the County sent Renna a letter that incorrectly stated that the seal was “now trademarked under federal law." The County also advised Renna that use of the seal on her show was a criminal act. With the help of the Rutherford Institute's attorney Douglas R. McKursick, Jr. and New Jersey attorneys Walter M. Luers and F. Michael Daily, Renna successfully sued Union County.
NJ Open Government Notes