Editorials/Columns
What’s good for the goose: I’ve written up a short primer for the Shenandoah County Board of Supervisors and School Board. The two have been at odds over a BOS member’s request for salary data and other records from the school board. The school board has said it will take 14 hours of staff time and cost around $700 to get the salary data because of the financial software the board uses. Neighboring localities charge $0 for the same salary information and some use off-the-shelf management tools like Excel.
Megan Rhyne, VCOG
A healthy democracy is dependant upon informed citizens and an aggressive press. Freedom of information laws are the most potent weapons available in the ongoing battles to keep government transparent and accountable to its citizens. LeMunyon’s legislation has garnered near-unanimous support in both the state Senate and House of Delegates. Soon it will be on the desk of Gov. Terry McAuliffe, waiting for his signature. After that, the hard work begins. The FOIA Council would be required to finish its review by Nov. 30, 2016, and submit a full report to the General Assembly on the first day of the 2017 session. And you can follow the work of the FOIA Council online at its website, foiacouncil.dls.virginia.gov. It’s out there … in the open … for one and all to see. As it should be.
News & Advance
Attorney General Mark Herring, the first Democrat to hold that office in two decades, reportedly has initiated an effort to make the agency function more like a law firm. Independent determination of the office's efficacy as the legal arbiter and defender of the commonwealth is long past due. As we've noted on these pages, some interpretations of state attorney general responsibilities have gone astray. We are generally skeptical of concentrations of power, whether in public or private hands. A reset makes sense. Three notable Virginians have been given the task of restructuring the attorney general's office: W. Taylor Reveley II, president of the College of William and Mary; Bill Leighty, former chief of staff for Govs. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine; and Katherine Busser, executive vice president of Capital One. Mr. Herring has asked the trio to consider a number of areas for potential reform including conflict-of-interest laws and the Freedom of Information Act — an area near and dear to us. Any audits involving state agency transparency has potential benefits for the commonwealth. We're looking forward to the outcome.
Daily Press
Another of Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s appointees has been plunged into an ethics tangle. Virginia Secretary of Commerce and Trade Maurice Jones violated the internal policy of the federal agency for which he once worked and might have violated federal law as well, a federal investigative office has reported. Mr. Jones had been deputy secretary of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Mr. Jones said he was unaware of the internal policy prohibiting presidential appointees, as he was at the time, from lobbying Congress on pending legislation. He said he consulted with staffers on the appropriateness of the emails and acted according to “their best advice to me at the time." He added: "I would never intentionally violate the laws, policies or codes of conduct that govern public officials, and I regret that this email has raised even the appearance of any impropriety." Too bad Mr. Jones didn’t have the wisdom to see the inherent conflict of interest that was about to entangle him.
Daily Progress
To understand the ethics bill’s shortcomings, it is useful to know that the vast majority of perks and handouts lavished upon lawmakers take the form of dinners, galas, banquets, trips, sporting events and other “intangibles”; collectively, they amount to a movable year-round feast for the commonwealth’s elected officials. The measures that have cleared both the House of Delegates and the Senate would do little about all that. Nor would the bill do anything about a quirk in Virginia law that allows lawmakers to live off their campaign accounts, redirecting donations mainly intended for electoral purposes to groceries, gasoline and virtually anything under the sun.
Washington Post |