Transparency News 2/7/14
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Virginia Coalition for Open Government View this email in your browser Friday, February 7, 2014
State and Local Stories
Yesterday, the House General Laws did not support passage of the bill that would have opened Virginia’s FOIA to out-of-state records requesters. Instead, the committee voted to send the bill to the FOIA Council for further study. The FOIA Council has already studied the issue and came up with no recommendation. The idea is strongly opposed by local government.
Also yesterday, the House Commerce & Labor finally heard two bills that would put the State Corporation Commission under FOIA -- the agency is the only state agency to be totally outside the scope of the public records law.
The patron of one bill agreed to table it. The patron of another bill gave an explanation of why he thought the change was needed, but before anyone on the committee could ask any questions (if they had them), a member made the motion to table the bill. The chair quickly pointed out that a motion to table “is non-debatable,” so no public comment could be heard. The committee passed the motion to table.
There are still two bills pending that attempt to open some of the SCC’s records up to the public, but solely on the SCC’s terms.
A federal judge has issued an order restricting dissemination of documents the prosecution and defense obtain in the federal corruption case against former Gov. Bob McDonnell and former first lady Maureen McDonnell. Both sides had agreed to the terms of the order. Protective orders are common in civil matters, but are seldom seen in criminal cases, said Charles “Chuck” James, a former federal prosecutor and chief deputy Virginia attorney general who is now a partner at the Williams Mullen law firm. “This comes on the heels of the court’s admonitions about pretrial publicity and contact with potential witnesses,” James said. “The court and parties are keenly aware of the attention this case will continue to garner and the need to establish clear guidelines for the benefit of the legal process.”
Times-Dispatch
A bill inspired by a Leesburg Town Council controversy last year will be presented to the full House of Delegates during today’s session. Del. Randy Minchew (R-10) introduced an amendment to the Virginia Freedom of Information Act to require the state's relatively new law that permits members of public bodies to participate in meetings from remote locations is uniformly applied. The bill, HB193, cleared the House Committee on General Laws with a unanimous vote Tuesday. Minchew noted in an email that strong support by the Loudoun Board of Supervisors contributed to the success of the bill during committee review.
Leesburg Today
Legislators in both chambers of the General Assembly are almost ready to roll out the fine print on new ethics rules they'll endorse in the wake of a gift scandal that led to the federal indictment of former Gov. Bob McDonnell. A Senate debate may come Friday, Senate Republican Leader Tommy Norment said Thursday. There are still are some 28 proposed amendments to sort through, and that has delayed debate this week, he said. "At some point I've just got to pull the trigger," said Norment, R-James City. The House version should be ready for a committee vote Friday, and could be ready for a final House vote Tuesday, according to Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Woodstock, who has shepherded the reform process in the House.
Daily Press
Bristol school leaders will include some additional data into their efforts to redraw elementary district lines after one parent’s question was asked during Thursday’s School Board meeting. Eric Jenkins, whose two children attend Stonewall Jackson Elementary, listened to a lengthy presentation about options and desired outcomes from Superintendent Mark Lineburg and members of the board — before asking a simple question.
Herald Courier
Shenandoah County leaders on Thursday stifled an effort to end its membership with state and national groups that lobby for local governments. The Board of Supervisors voted at a work session to not forward a resolution seeking to resign from the Virginia Association of Counties and the National Association of Counties.
Northern Virginia Daily
Virginia’s top constitutional authority reiterated Thursday what state and federal officials have said before — that, when it comes to food stamp data, federal law prohibits public access. Virginia’s Department of Social Services officially responded to Watchdog.org’s Freedom of Information Act request filed earlier in the week, saying they’d referred the matter to Attorney General Mark Herring’s office. Watchdog.org sought the date and time, location and amount of transactions made from July 1, 2013, through Sept. 1, 2013, in Richmond with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.
Watchdog.org Virginia Bureau
The Portsmouth employee who manages the city's Facebook page frequently posts motivational sayings not usually found on a government social media site.
Virginian-Pilot
Slide presentations largely aim to provide audiences with visual aids to help in understanding complex ideas. But sometimes, the images can just add to the complexity. At a meeting scheduled for Monday, the Fairfax County School Board plans to discuss Superintendent Karen Garza’s top initiative for this year: A new strategic plan for the school system. Garza has said that a concrete strategy will help her administration work more efficiently and make decisions with a specific goal in mind. The school board presentation Monday on the strategic plan includes one slide that is, well, a bit confusing.
Washington Post National Stories
Twenty-six hours. That’s how long it took Duke Energy to tell residents that a toxic stream of coal ash was flowing down the Dan River. By then, the water that leached from the coal ash pond would have already reached Danville, Va., 20 miles down the river. Legally speaking, the company met its public notification requirements. State law requires Duke to notify the public within 48 hours of such an incident. But river advocates and others said 26 hours was too long to wait.
News & Advance
Video from a fatal airplane crash in Boyne City, Mich., is causing a local Charlevoix County News staffer some turbulence of his own. Michigan State Police arrested Damien Leist, 38, of Boyne City, at his home Jan. 29 for “photographing dead body in a grave,” a felony in Michigan with a maximum two years in prison and possible $5,000 fine. The advertising sales representative from the Charlevoix County News, owned by Choice Publications based in Gaylord, is being charged for misleading law enforcement to capture video images of a Jan. 6 airplane crash near Addis Road in Boyne City, where two Southeastern Michigan men died earlier in the morning.
Petoskey News
Several cities and counties in the Mankato, Minn., area have been named as defendants in one of the latest lawsuits accusing public employees of abusing their access to driver's license information through a state database. The lawsuit, filed by Twin Cities Fox 9 Morning News anchor Alix Kendall, claims her license information was accessed more than 3,800 times during a 10-year period through the Minnesota Department of Public Safety's Driver and Vehicle Services database.
Mankato Free Press
An Iowa Department of Public Safety employee has been fired for improperly accessing the criminal records of her two daughters, according to a recent ruling denying her unemployment benefits. Kathleen Sohn was fired Dec. 5 after the Division of Criminal Investigation learned that someone using her name and password had used a law enforcement database to access the records of her daughters on May 15, according to last week’s ruling from Administrative Law Judge Bonny Hendricksmeyer.
Des Moines Register Editorials/Columns
Virginian-Pilot: Virginia's Freedom of Information Act is designed to preserve the public's right to oversee the public's business. Lawmakers have steadily carved out new exemptions and expanded existing ones. In all, Virginia's FOIA includes 172 exemptions that cloak public meetings and records in darkness. In 1999, the last year in which the state performed an in-depth review of public records law, Virginia's FOIA had 102 exemptions. It's time for another review. Perhaps the review also will answer how, exactly, the public could possibly hope to know what's happening in government when so many of the government's most powerful and influential officials aren't subject to Virginia's public records law.
Roanoke Times: It's not possible to take all of the drama out of democracy, nor would anyone wish to do so. But a bill sponsored by Roanoke Sen. John Edwards, one enjoying bipartisan support in that chamber, would tamp down on some of the hair-pulling, shrieking and all around unseemly behavior that convulsed the commonwealth in the weeks leading up to last November's elections. The inspiration for all of the angst was a new program to search out duplicate records for individuals who have registered to vote in Virginia and other states. More than 38,000 names were purged from the commonwealth's rolls as a result.
InsideNOVA: Haymarket, please, you’re embarrassing us. Instead of watching out for their 1,900 or so residents, the mayor and council of the 215-year-old town are bickering and censuring each other and letting who-knows-what go on within the Haymarket police force. No one will come out and say exactly what’s happening with the police chief, deputy chief and one officer (half of the six-member police department), but there are veiled references to sexual harassment and sensitive training. Virginia State Police say they are investigating an incident reported to them regarding Chief Jim Roop, but won’t elaborate.
Virginia Coalition for Open Government View this email in your browser Friday, February 7, 2014
State and Local Stories
Yesterday, the House General Laws did not support passage of the bill that would have opened Virginia’s FOIA to out-of-state records requesters. Instead, the committee voted to send the bill to the FOIA Council for further study. The FOIA Council has already studied the issue and came up with no recommendation. The idea is strongly opposed by local government.
Also yesterday, the House Commerce & Labor finally heard two bills that would put the State Corporation Commission under FOIA -- the agency is the only state agency to be totally outside the scope of the public records law.
The patron of one bill agreed to table it. The patron of another bill gave an explanation of why he thought the change was needed, but before anyone on the committee could ask any questions (if they had them), a member made the motion to table the bill. The chair quickly pointed out that a motion to table “is non-debatable,” so no public comment could be heard. The committee passed the motion to table.
There are still two bills pending that attempt to open some of the SCC’s records up to the public, but solely on the SCC’s terms.
A federal judge has issued an order restricting dissemination of documents the prosecution and defense obtain in the federal corruption case against former Gov. Bob McDonnell and former first lady Maureen McDonnell. Both sides had agreed to the terms of the order. Protective orders are common in civil matters, but are seldom seen in criminal cases, said Charles “Chuck” James, a former federal prosecutor and chief deputy Virginia attorney general who is now a partner at the Williams Mullen law firm. “This comes on the heels of the court’s admonitions about pretrial publicity and contact with potential witnesses,” James said. “The court and parties are keenly aware of the attention this case will continue to garner and the need to establish clear guidelines for the benefit of the legal process.”
Times-Dispatch
A bill inspired by a Leesburg Town Council controversy last year will be presented to the full House of Delegates during today’s session. Del. Randy Minchew (R-10) introduced an amendment to the Virginia Freedom of Information Act to require the state's relatively new law that permits members of public bodies to participate in meetings from remote locations is uniformly applied. The bill, HB193, cleared the House Committee on General Laws with a unanimous vote Tuesday. Minchew noted in an email that strong support by the Loudoun Board of Supervisors contributed to the success of the bill during committee review.
Leesburg Today
Legislators in both chambers of the General Assembly are almost ready to roll out the fine print on new ethics rules they'll endorse in the wake of a gift scandal that led to the federal indictment of former Gov. Bob McDonnell. A Senate debate may come Friday, Senate Republican Leader Tommy Norment said Thursday. There are still are some 28 proposed amendments to sort through, and that has delayed debate this week, he said. "At some point I've just got to pull the trigger," said Norment, R-James City. The House version should be ready for a committee vote Friday, and could be ready for a final House vote Tuesday, according to Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Woodstock, who has shepherded the reform process in the House.
Daily Press
Bristol school leaders will include some additional data into their efforts to redraw elementary district lines after one parent’s question was asked during Thursday’s School Board meeting. Eric Jenkins, whose two children attend Stonewall Jackson Elementary, listened to a lengthy presentation about options and desired outcomes from Superintendent Mark Lineburg and members of the board — before asking a simple question.
Herald Courier
Shenandoah County leaders on Thursday stifled an effort to end its membership with state and national groups that lobby for local governments. The Board of Supervisors voted at a work session to not forward a resolution seeking to resign from the Virginia Association of Counties and the National Association of Counties.
Northern Virginia Daily
Virginia’s top constitutional authority reiterated Thursday what state and federal officials have said before — that, when it comes to food stamp data, federal law prohibits public access. Virginia’s Department of Social Services officially responded to Watchdog.org’s Freedom of Information Act request filed earlier in the week, saying they’d referred the matter to Attorney General Mark Herring’s office. Watchdog.org sought the date and time, location and amount of transactions made from July 1, 2013, through Sept. 1, 2013, in Richmond with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.
Watchdog.org Virginia Bureau
The Portsmouth employee who manages the city's Facebook page frequently posts motivational sayings not usually found on a government social media site.
Virginian-Pilot
Slide presentations largely aim to provide audiences with visual aids to help in understanding complex ideas. But sometimes, the images can just add to the complexity. At a meeting scheduled for Monday, the Fairfax County School Board plans to discuss Superintendent Karen Garza’s top initiative for this year: A new strategic plan for the school system. Garza has said that a concrete strategy will help her administration work more efficiently and make decisions with a specific goal in mind. The school board presentation Monday on the strategic plan includes one slide that is, well, a bit confusing.
Washington Post National Stories
Twenty-six hours. That’s how long it took Duke Energy to tell residents that a toxic stream of coal ash was flowing down the Dan River. By then, the water that leached from the coal ash pond would have already reached Danville, Va., 20 miles down the river. Legally speaking, the company met its public notification requirements. State law requires Duke to notify the public within 48 hours of such an incident. But river advocates and others said 26 hours was too long to wait.
News & Advance
Video from a fatal airplane crash in Boyne City, Mich., is causing a local Charlevoix County News staffer some turbulence of his own. Michigan State Police arrested Damien Leist, 38, of Boyne City, at his home Jan. 29 for “photographing dead body in a grave,” a felony in Michigan with a maximum two years in prison and possible $5,000 fine. The advertising sales representative from the Charlevoix County News, owned by Choice Publications based in Gaylord, is being charged for misleading law enforcement to capture video images of a Jan. 6 airplane crash near Addis Road in Boyne City, where two Southeastern Michigan men died earlier in the morning.
Petoskey News
Several cities and counties in the Mankato, Minn., area have been named as defendants in one of the latest lawsuits accusing public employees of abusing their access to driver's license information through a state database. The lawsuit, filed by Twin Cities Fox 9 Morning News anchor Alix Kendall, claims her license information was accessed more than 3,800 times during a 10-year period through the Minnesota Department of Public Safety's Driver and Vehicle Services database.
Mankato Free Press
An Iowa Department of Public Safety employee has been fired for improperly accessing the criminal records of her two daughters, according to a recent ruling denying her unemployment benefits. Kathleen Sohn was fired Dec. 5 after the Division of Criminal Investigation learned that someone using her name and password had used a law enforcement database to access the records of her daughters on May 15, according to last week’s ruling from Administrative Law Judge Bonny Hendricksmeyer.
Des Moines Register Editorials/Columns
Virginian-Pilot: Virginia's Freedom of Information Act is designed to preserve the public's right to oversee the public's business. Lawmakers have steadily carved out new exemptions and expanded existing ones. In all, Virginia's FOIA includes 172 exemptions that cloak public meetings and records in darkness. In 1999, the last year in which the state performed an in-depth review of public records law, Virginia's FOIA had 102 exemptions. It's time for another review. Perhaps the review also will answer how, exactly, the public could possibly hope to know what's happening in government when so many of the government's most powerful and influential officials aren't subject to Virginia's public records law.
Roanoke Times: It's not possible to take all of the drama out of democracy, nor would anyone wish to do so. But a bill sponsored by Roanoke Sen. John Edwards, one enjoying bipartisan support in that chamber, would tamp down on some of the hair-pulling, shrieking and all around unseemly behavior that convulsed the commonwealth in the weeks leading up to last November's elections. The inspiration for all of the angst was a new program to search out duplicate records for individuals who have registered to vote in Virginia and other states. More than 38,000 names were purged from the commonwealth's rolls as a result.
InsideNOVA: Haymarket, please, you’re embarrassing us. Instead of watching out for their 1,900 or so residents, the mayor and council of the 215-year-old town are bickering and censuring each other and letting who-knows-what go on within the Haymarket police force. No one will come out and say exactly what’s happening with the police chief, deputy chief and one officer (half of the six-member police department), but there are veiled references to sexual harassment and sensitive training. Virginia State Police say they are investigating an incident reported to them regarding Chief Jim Roop, but won’t elaborate.
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