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Tuesday, February 10, 2015
State and Local Stories
Attorney General opinion on mugshots: "For the foregoing reasons, it is my opinion that local law enforcement agencies must disclose adult arrestee photographs pursuant to a valid FOIA request if they are contained in a database maintained by the local law enforcement agency, regardless of whether the defendant is still incarcerated or has been released, unless disclosing them will jeopardize a felony investigation. However, photographs may not be drawn from the Central Criminal Records Exchange for disclosure at any time to comply with a FOIA request."
VCOG website
A Richmond judge has thrown out a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed against the city related to the departure last year of former chief administrative officer Byron C. Marshall. But the judge's ruling makes clear that the city is on shaky legal ground with its refusal to disclose the confidentiality agreementsCity Council members were asked to sign before being briefed on Marshall's exit in September. In a ruling dated Wednesday, Richmond Circuit Court Judge Joi Jeter Taylor said she had reviewed the confidentiality agreement privately, and she concluded it is not protected by public-records exemptions related to personnel records and attorney-client privilege, as the city had argued. But Taylor said the issue of the confidentiality agreement was not properly before the court because Carol A.O. Wolf, the former Richmond School Board member who filed the suit, had technically asked for the names of all council members who signed it, not the document itself.
Times-Dispatch
Legislation that would allow the state to prevent public disclosure of nearly every aspect of the drugs used in lethal injection executions in Virginia narrowly survived a Senate committee Monday. The Senate Courts of Justice Committee voted 7-6 to advance Senate Bill 1393, sponsored by Sen. Richard L. Saslaw, D-Fairfax and supported by Gov. Terry McAuliffe's administration. It now heads to the full Senate for consideration. The bill would give the Department of Corrections the authority to contract with pharmacies to compound the drugs used in the lethal cocktail used in state executions. But it would also protect from disclosure the identity of the pharmacy compounding drugs, the names of the drugs, the identity of the companies that produced the drugs, and the concentration of the drugs used.
Times-Dispatch
The trio of pipeline bills introduced by Sen. Emmett Hanger, R-Augusta, died in committee Monday. The bills — which sought to open up project records and restrict or repeal a controversial 2004 surveying law — attracted little support in the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee, though individual lawmakers expressed sympathy for the property owners. The concept behind Senate Bill 1166, an open records bill, was referred to the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council for study.
News & Advance
It isn’t news to anyone paying tuition at one of Virginia’s public universities that different schools charge different tuition rates. It turns out those different price tags apply to requests for public information, too. In light of a recent state audit pointing out universities’ massive travel tabs, Watchdog.org requested the employment contracts and two years’ worth of travel expense records for all of Virginia’s 15 public university presidents. In the end, public records estimates were not created equally. Virginia law allows public bodies charge a “reasonable” amount that doesn’t exceed the actual cost of producing the documents. But that word “reasonable” is up for interpretation, and can be settled only by a judge. The University of Virginia wants to charge the most for its president’s contract and travel records — $510. They reached that figure by estimating it would take seven hours at $45 an hour for the “staff time searching and collecting potentially responsive records.”
Watchdog.org Virginia Bureau
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