Transparency News 2/20/15

One male wallaby lay in the zoo's animal hospital, refusing to eat hay or grain. He stopped moving and died the next day. A female wallaby died the next month, a baby joey still wiggling in her pouch. Zoo staff members tried to hand-raise the little one, but it died, too. In all, 13 wallabies, including six babies, have died at Norfolk's Virginia Zoo since the smaller members of the kangaroo family were first brought there for an Australia exhibit, according to records obtained by The Virginian-Pilot. Toxoplasmosis is the confirmed cause of six of those deaths and might have contributed to a seventh. The disease, also known as toxo, is caused by a parasite carried in cat feces. A large population of feral cats roams the zoo's property. Zoo Executive Director Greg Bockheim had declined to divulge how many joeys had died, saying he would provide that information in response to a pending public records request. Zoo records also show the wallabies died within a six-month span, beginning about a month after the first group arrived from New Zealand in February 2014.
Virginian-Pilot

A federal judge on Thursday sided with free-speech advocates in ordering the city of Charlottesville to stop enforcing an ordinance that prohibits panhandling on parts of the Downtown Mall. The measure banning solicitation in zones along the heart of the city’s pedestrian mall violates the First Amendment of the Constitution because it targets certain types of speech, U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon found.  “The City offers insufficient justification (much less a good explanation) for the fifty-foot measurement of the so-called buffer zone,” he wrote in a 25-page opinion filed Thursday. “There are other laws that permit the City to protect the public safety without burdening speech rights.”
Daily Progress

As the House of Delegates and Senate continue to negotiate the terms of proposed ethics legislation, county officials are expressing concern that legislators’ one-size-fits-all approach to ethics reform will wind up doing more harm than good at the local level. As part of the ongoing response to former Gov. Bob McDonnell’s conviction on federal corruption charges for providing favors to a wealthy businessman who showered his family with expensive gifts, legislators have been working to strengthen the state’s ethics and conflict of interest laws. While there are still a number of differences in the details, both the House and Senate versions of the bill places a $100 limit on accepting gifts, travel and meals from lobbyists and people seeking to do business with the government. Both bills also require increased financial disclosure for public officials and provide more detail on the duties of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Advisory Council, a body that was created in legislation last year but never funded or implemented. The council could advise officials about ethical issues and grant waivers to the gift limit. While they strongly support ethics reform, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and other local governments in the state have expressed concern about the practicality of applying the same provisions to state level and local level officials.
Fairfax Times

The city of Richmond paid an outside law firm $16,150 for legal work in September related to the abrupt departure of former Chief Administrative Officer Byron C. Marshall, according to city records. The city paid the labor and employment law firm Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart $250 per hour for 64.6 hours of legal work related to “Executive Employment Advice,” according to records obtained by a former Richmond School Board member who sued the city last year over its refusal to release documents related to Marshall’s exit. There has never been a full explanation of why the city needed to hire outside legal help. Marshall was said to have resigned, but city attorneys have argued in court that there was an unspecified dispute that required confidentiality.
Times-Dispatch

National Stories

An Oklahoma House of Representatives committee passed on Thursday sweeping changes to the state’s Open Records Act that would allow a public body to deny any records request its officials think “would clearly cause excessive disruption of (its) essential function.” The measure, introduced by Rep. Claudia Griffith, D-Cleveland, but amended by Rep. Mike Christian, R-Oklahoma City, passed through the House’s Public Safety Committee by a vote of 10-1. Christian is chairman of the committee. The bill itself, House Bill 1361, contains two sections, but only the second section was discussed in the committee Thursday morning. That section covers video recorded by on-duty law enforcers on body cameras or dash cameras and restrictions placed on the release of that video. The first section, which was not discussed, would give any public body the right to determine whether an open records request would cause an “excessive disruption.” That public body could then deny that request in its entirety.
Tulsa World

Computer hackers who breached the State Department's unclassified e-mail network this past November reportedly are still there, despite efforts to root them out.  The Wall Street Journal, citing three people familiar with the investigation, reported that government officials, including the National Security Agency and the FBI, as well as outside contractors have repeatedly scanned the network for intruders and have even taken some systems offline. However, the paper reported that investigators still see signs of hackers in the network.  Among the issues facing investigators trying to purge the State Department network of the intruders, according to the Journal, is its sheer size, as well as the fact that some of the hackers are apparently trying to regain access to the system using altered versions of their original code. It is not clear how much data, if any, has been taken by the intruders, and there is no evidence that they have access any classified networks. 
Fox News

Editorials/Columns
 

It’s official: Hanover citizens are about to have much better access to their local government. Last week, the board of supervisors unanimously approved a proposal to live-stream county meetings online, ensuring anyone with an Internet connection and an interest in local public affairs can easily keep up with Hanover’s top elected officials. We applaud the board for seeing this initiative through. We hope they make good on extending the streaming services to other public bodies. Planning commissioners lay the groundwork for a lot of major decisions impacting land use and, by extension, quality of life in Hanover County and citizens should have equal access to their hearings. We also hope Hanover’s school board, the body responsible for managing the largest chunk of taxpayer money on an annual basis, will follow the board of supervisors’ lead in offering greater public access to their meetings. But, overall, the board of supervisors has taken a great first step toward what will hopefully be a more open and transparent government.
Herald-Progress

This newspaper is not opposed to capital punishment. We understand that safe, effective and humane methods must be found to impose capital punishment. But, that’s rather the point, isn’t it? At present there are questions that the drugs Virginia seeks to use — or might seek to use in the future — are in fact safe, effective and humane. The solution is not to hide the information that might give us those answers. The Commonwealth of Virginia is killing people on behalf of the public — and the public has the right to know how. 
Daily Progress

Richmonders awoke Thursday to a story simultaneously surprising and familiar. The city School Board convened an emergency session. Superintendent Dana Bedden and Assistant Superintendent Tommy Kranz attended the session, which was closed to the press and to the public. The Times-Dispatch objected to the meeting. School Board Chairman Donald Coleman subsequently announced that Bedden is a finalist for the superintendency in Boston. The news answered speculation. Concerns regarding secrecy remain. Discussions regarding government employees deserve a level of confidentiality. Top-level positions also should legally forfeit some of those confidentiality considerations. The status of ranking officials belongs on the public record. Citizens still have not received a precise explanation of Byron Marshall’s departure as chief administrative officer. Secret meetings stir rumors. Sunshine clears the air.
Times-Dispatch

. . . This week’s roses go to . . . State Senators Jeff McWaters and John Cosgrove, both Republicans from South Hampton Roads, for sponsoring legislation that would require additional time for public comments before votes by the Hampton Roads Transportation Accountability Commission.
Daily Press