Transparency News 2/14/19

 

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Thursday
February 14, 2019

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Check out the updated annual legislative bill chart. We're in the home stretch!

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state & local news stories

 

 

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"Holloway said after the meeting that he voted against adding the matter to the closed session because 'I can’t be bullied into flipping my vote.'”

The Mathews County Board of Supervisors was scheduled to meet yesterday in a closed session, one week after board members met behind closed doors and, after coming out in open session, voted by a 4-0 margin to terminate the employment of County Attorney Daniel Stuck. The Feb. 7 meeting was previously unscheduled and was called that day. Supervisor Amy Dubois said she was aware that the meeting was being held, but opted not to attend. She has since indicated that she was concerned about its legality. The Virginia Freedom of Information Act requires at least three working days’ prior notice and, if a special emergency meeting is called, that notice be given to the public at the same time it is provided to members of the public body conducting the meeting. The only notice given to the public was a statement to that effect by supervisor Pepper Love, who stopped by the Gazette-Journal’s Mathews office on his way to the meeting. Pursuant to a FOIA request for supervisors’ emails, the Gazette-Journal found that Supervisor Chair G. C. Morrow had emailed supervisors with a notice, stating, “This is notice of meeting called for and verbally delivered to mathews county administrator Mindy Conner at 11:25 a.m. today 2-7-19.” The subject line read “Spec closed meeting to discuss personal matters.”
Gloucester-Mathews Gazette-Journal

Virginia Beer Museum owner and lawyer David Downes has filed a lawsuit against the Town Council in hopes of overturning its decision to deny the museum an exemption from off-street parking requirements. At the Town Council’s regular Monday meeting, Councilman Eugene Tewalt’s motion that discussion regarding the potential litigation be added to a closed session’s agenda failed by a 5-1 vote with Councilman Chris Holloway as the lone dissenter. Since a unanimous vote was required to pass the motion, the item was not added to the closed session’s agenda.  Holloway said after the meeting that he voted against adding the matter to the closed session because “I can’t be bullied into flipping my vote” and there was nothing to discuss at this point. He added that the councilmen just received information regarding the lawsuit.
The Northern Virginia Daily

Fed up with slow progress, county broadband officials scheduled a special meeting to decide whether to sever ties with their consultants. If the county decides to fire Wide Open Networks and cancel the rest of its $159,000 contract, the Louisa County Broadband Authority will have to figure out who else can manage the wireless tower project. Members met in closed session on Feb. 12 to discuss the consultants’ performance. Andrew Cohill, the company’s president, and his staff have worked with the county since 2015, when the authority first developed the concept of building towers across the county to improve internet service.
The Central Virginian

The proposed County Waste transfer station for Concord was the hot topic at Wednesday's Appomattox County Planning Commission meeting. A month after the commission tabled the matter, all representatives, except for the chairman, Josh Mills, voted in favor of recommending the permit to the county Board of Supervisors. Citizens hurled words of disgust and aggravation at the Planning Commission members. Others exited the room silently but visibly downcast. “It’s not your property,” said a lady. “I have a house for sale if you’d like to buy it,” said another as she filed out the door. “How many people on the board live in Concord?” asked a man. Insults were hurled at the voting members; one lady even marched up to the members, pointing her finger at them. A deputy came up to intercede, but she left the room.
Times Virginian

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stories of national interest

The partial federal shutdown ended weeks ago, but one lingering effect turns out to be citizens’ ability to get public records from a government agency. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s public records management and tracking system has been offline since early January, when a contract to run it lapsed. Four Freedom of Information Act officers at HUD said the lack of a system has drastically slowed their ability to process requests and has presented challenges in tracking the dozens of them the agency receives each week. Members of the public can no longer submit requests via HUD’s website or track their status. Late last week, the agency updated its website to include new instructions for filing a FOIA request via email, fax or mail.
ProPublica

The White House Office of Management and Budget is asking agencies to get their National FOIA Portal interoperability plans in order. The FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 required that OMB and the Department of Justice simplify the Freedom of Information Act landscape by creating a central portal that anyone can visit to submit a request to any agency. Today, that portal lives at FOIA.gov. But not all agencies have established interoperability between FOIA.gov and the agency’s existing FOIA platform. Deputy Director for Management Margaret Weichert sent a memo Tuesday setting a deadline of May 10, 2019, for agencies to submit a full strategy for how their in-house platform, which can range from a simple spreadsheet to an automated case management system depending on agency need and resources, will play nice with FOIA.gov.
FedScoop

Reporting a story on the Park County, Colorado, sheriff last month, 9NEWS journalists Noel Brennan and Bryan Wendland were told they couldn’t bring their cameras into a county commissioners’ meeting that was open to the public. The cameras would be a “disruption,” Park County Commissioner Mike Brazell said. They would encourage “grandstanding,” County Attorney Erin Smith told the reporters. Only one other individual attended the meeting, which the county audio recorded. Brennan and Wendland were allowed to ask questions about the now-former sheriff during the public comment period, but when they obtained a copy of the audio, their questions weren’t audible.
Colorado FOI Coalition

 

 

 

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"Members of the public can no longer submit requests via HUD’s website or track their status."

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