Transparency News 2/9/15
Monday, February 9, 2015
State and Local Stories
Prodded by constituents in Virginia Beach, a member of the House of Delegates introduced legislation this year he hoped would force the Virginia High School League to undo a dramatic overhaul of high school sports enacted more than two years ago. Although HB1415, intended to force the VHSL to alter its voting structure, was tabled by the Education Committee last week, Del. Glenn Davis, R-Virginia Beach, vows to return with legislation next year if the VHSL doesn't do something substantive to reverse those changes. Davis's bill was scheduled to be heard by a subcommittee on Jan. 28, but was instead heard two days earlier by the full Education Committee. The change was not reflected on the General Assembly website until after the vote. Davis said Committee Chairman Steven R. Landes, R-Albemarle County, told him bill was moved to a full committee because he thought the bill had been heard in a subcommittee last year. When Davis asked that a hearing on the bill be delayed until the next committee meeting - a request nearly always granted - Landes declined. It died on an unrecorded voice vote. Attorney and parent Kevin Martingayle had planned to come to Richmond to speak in favor of the bill. Instead, he received a call from Davis' office an hour before the hearing, asking if he could he attend the hearing. "I was in Virginia Beach," he said. "It's just outrageous that they deprived the public a right to participate at this hearing and media a chance to cover it." Davis said he is troubled that the VHSL is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act or state oversight and said he may introduce legislation next year forcing the group to fall under FOIA laws.
Virginian-Pilot
A Chesterfield County communications company has claimed authority to issue statements on behalf of Richmond School Board member Mamie Taylor of the 5th District. In a two-paragraph statement sent by email Friday, Cruz Sherman of Cruz Inc. Global Media, Marketing and Public Relations said his company would be the point of contact for Taylor. “In response to your article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Thursday, February 5, 2015. Any future statements will come from this agency on the behalf of Ms. Taylor,” Cruz said in an email received Friday at 8:42 a.m. “Please direct any and all questions to Cruz Inc Global Media, Marketing and Public Relations.” The message was signed by Sherman, the president of the company. Taylor did not answer her School Board-issued cellphone or respond to a text message or email about the legitimacy of Sherman’s email.
Times-Dispatch
A newly hired employee for the city of Richmond was authorized to take a city vehicle home to Fredericksburg, according to an investigative report by the office of City Auditor/Inspector General Umesh Dalal. The arrangement was temporary until the employee could relocate to the city, according to the report released Wednesday. But the employee relocated to Chesterfield County and continued to commute to and from the county with a city vehicle. On May 12 of last year, the Department of Planning and Development Review hired John G. Walsh, as operations manager for its code enforcement division. Walsh was given permission in his offer letter to use a city vehicle to get to and from Fredericksburg for up to a year, the report said. The report doesn’t accuse Walsh of wrongdoing and makes clear that he appeared to have permission to use the vehicle as he did. But the report suggests Walsh’s superiors overstepped city policy in allowing a take-home vehicle to go as far as Fredericksburg, which is roughly 50 miles from City Hall.
Times-Dispatch
A week after NBC12 broke the story RRHA's CEO was resigning, the agency will not release how much of your money Adrienne Goolsby is walking away with as severance. According to Virginia law in most cases, you are entitled to know how much severance your officials are getting. How your tax dollars are being spent is in fact part of the public record. When we sent a Freedom of Information Act request to RRHA, spokesperson Kiara Green responded: "As we have shared before, RRHA does not comment on personnel matters,” and “We have fulfilled our obligations under FOIA and have no further comment." All week long, we've been going back and forth with RRHA to find out how it is allocating your tax dollars to the CEO, who once led an agency tasked with taking care of the city's poorest residents.
NBC12
Sen. Tommy Norment, leader of the Republicans in the state Senate, faulted the media on Wednesday for raising attention to ethics reform. He told Sen. Dick Saslaw lawmakers were working on ethics reform "because the media is on our back." Norment later told reporters that ethics reform was the news media's "end game." He acknowledged today in a committee hearing that he "probably made some intemperate remarks in front of the media the other day." "Oh, I never do that," Saslaw, a Fairfax County Democrat and one of the most quotable lawmakers, sarcastically responded.
Virginian-Pilot
Sen. Steve Newman’s ethics bill was killed in committee Friday following only brief discussion. Newman’s Senate Bill 777 would have allowed lawmakers to voluntarily register as “gift-free” and put lobbyists on notice that overtures will be unwelcome. Newman, R-Forest, said he knew going in it was going to be a “stretch” to get the bill advanced. It received a lukewarm reception in subcommittee earlier this week and was forwarded with no recommendation. During Friday’s session, committee chairman Sen. Ryan McDougle questioned the need for a formal gift-free listing. “Can’t somebody just put this on their webpage?” McDougle, R-Hanover, asked. Newman said getting out the word individually can be difficult, especially when parties send gifts by mail. The Senate Rules Committee tabled a proposal from Sen. Tom Garrett, R-Buckingham, on Friday that would have created a perjury penalty for those who knowingly lie during General Assembly hearings. The reaction to SB1139 was mixed as some feared it would deter average citizens from speaking or become a tool for political retribution.
News & Advance
Towns and cities in Virginia are perpetually short of cash, but a Charlottesville man says there’s an easy fix. If they could get one state commission to share a single computer file, they could collect at least $200 million. Waldo Jaquith heads U.S. Open Data - a non-profit set up to help people in government understand how to use all the information they gather to better serve the public. Lately he’s been looking at the State Corporation Commission. Anyone who starts a business here is required to register with the SCC. A list of Virginia companies should be public information, but the SCC told Jaquith he would have to pay $150 a month to have a look. He thought that was wrong, so he decided to pay up and prove the point. “The data is terrible. I mean it’s very messy. It’s in a format that I’ve never heard of that I gather was popular in the early 1980’s.” “I got an e-mail from a woman out of the blue who works for a town in Virginia, and she asked if there was some way for her to get the list of corporations registered in their town, and she explained to me that they, like many municipalities throughout Virginia, charge a business license fee. They have no way of knowing what businesses are registered in the town, so they don’t know who’s not paying their license fees.” He wrote some code to get her that information, and then he shared it with the revenue director of his home town.
WVTF
Business interests spent nearly $9,000 hosting 32 elected officials at two plush Richmond events early in the 2014 General Assembly — and 30 of the politicians never mentioned it in their financial disclosure forms. The gap between what lobbyists report to the state, and what politicians do, can be wide — and hard to track down. The practice of splitting the tab for a dinner or gift among several clients means lobbyists don't have to say who got the freebie. Legislators, meanwhile, rely on what lobbyists tell them about the value of gifts and dinners when making their required financial disclosures — the basic tool Virginia relies on to ensure that its public officials act in the public interest, not to their personal benefit.
Daily Press
Free to speak — or not? During a Suffolk City Council meeting Wednesday in which government transparency and communication were major recurring themes, Vice Mayor Leroy Bennett wondered aloud why city employees might have been told not to talk to members of City Council. “Some of them are telling me that there has been a letter or memo or something out that they are not supposed to talk with council members,” he said. In the days since, an email from Chief of Staff Debbie George and minutes of a meeting conducted by Fire Chief Cedric Scott have surfaced, showing that employees have, indeed, been instructed to route requests for information from council members through the city manager’s office. On Thursday, the News-Herald obtained minutes of a fire department staff meeting on May 14, 2014. The following statement appears under the heading, “Fire Chief’s Report”: “Should you receive a phone or email message to contact a Councilperson from anyone outside of the City Manager’s Office, please forward that request to your respective Deputy Chief via your Chain of Command to be forwarded to Chief of Staff. All inquiries and requests from City Council should come through the City Manager’s Office where they can be properly logged, reviewed, assigned and updated.”
Suffolk News-Herald
It was business as usual at the Virginia Beach City Council's budget workshop last week - despite the fact that two of the elected officials in the room were under investigations. On Thursday, Mayor Will Sessoms was at the head of a long table in the Brock Environmental Center; Councilman John Uhrin sat to his right. A special prosecutor from Lynchburg was named in November to investigate whether some of Sessoms' votes might have broken state conflict-of-interest laws. While serving as mayor and as a TowneBank president, Sessoms cast dozens of votes involving bank clients who had borrowed at least $140 million from the institution, according to an investigation by The Virginian-Pilot. The FBI opened a criminal investigation into Uhrin's 2013 vote to approve millions in taxpayer incentives to renovate The Cavalier Hotel and allow a luxury housing community on the site weeks before his wife, Catherine J. Sassone, was hired to market the homes. A federal grand jury ordered Virginia Beach to turn over computer records, emails and phone logs. Virginia Beach officials said neither the council nor the city's staff are considering policy changes to try to prevent future investigations, but that they are working to make sure the city gets better responses to financial disclosure questions from applicants for zoning changes.
Virginian-Pilot
A bill in the General Assembly would require colleges and universities to list “consumer information” — including average tuition and fee increases over the past 10 years — on their websites. The bill, introduced by Del. Timothy D. Hugo, R-Fairfax, has sailed through the House unopposed and has been referred to committee in the Senate. It is part of a larger movement in the government to require universities to disclose information that could help in the decision-making of students and families researching higher education. In addition to information on tuition and fees, universities also would have to link to a page displaying graduation and retention rates — as well as budgeting information — on the homepages of their websites.
News Virginian
A Fairfax County judge on Friday ordered county police to release their internal affairs reports in the 2013 fatal police shooting of a Springfield man and to continue to turn over such reports even as the internal investigation continues. Judge Randy I. Bellows made the decision in the civil suit filed by the family of John B. Geer, who was shot as he stood unarmed in the doorway of his townhouse by a county police officer. No decision has been made on whether to charge the officer, Adam D. Torres, who remains on paid administrative duty. Bellows required county police to turn over only its factual reports in the shooting to Geer’s family attorneys, not materials showing internal deliberations or discipline. The police did not launch an internal investigation until September, after Geer’s longtime partner, Maura Harrington, filed suit against Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr., Torres and the department on behalf of the couple’s two teenage daughters.
Washington Post
National Stories
Thanks to controversy surrounding a student newspaper’s Freedom of Information Act request, the public now knows that Jack White is currently on a “no banana” tour, that he prefers his guacamole “chunky” and that he doesn’t think much of journalism degrees. Those details were revealed after the University of Oklahoma’s OU Daily got curious about White’s sold-out performance at the university’s McCasland Field House. Staffers wanted to see how much the University was paying White to perform (upwards of $80,000, it turns out), so they filed a FOIA request for the contract.
Poynter Editorials/Columns
Sunshine Week arrived early this year in Richmond. On the eve of the 2015 session of the General Assembly, a new coalition joined the action. At a news conference, Transparency Virginia signaled its presence to the commonwealth. Its mission? Working with legislators to ensure fair procedure is followed in legislative committees. The idea began in an exchange in November between a senator’s staff and two groups discussing a proposed bill. One veteran advocate noted glumly, “Of course, the subcommittee will kill it again, without a recorded vote.” At that moment, a spark ignited. Suddenly, another participant asked, “Why do we keep accepting that, year after year?”
Anne Sterling, Times-Dispatch
When government makes decisions, large and small, it should be done in front of the public. That's a simple, straightforward and reasonable expectation — but one that we see violated time and again throughout Hampton Roads, to our chagrin and, frankly, our astonishment. Take the recent discussion in York County for instance. At last week's Board of Supervisors meeting, members discussed the potential benefits and liabilities of having the board's chairman and vice chairman meet privately with their counterparts on the York County School Board to discuss budget matters. Suffolk City Council members are considering amending their code of ethics to prohibit disclosing any information discussed in closed sessions. As it is written, there are no formal consequences to violating that provision, should the council adopt it. If ever you wondered why Virginia's Freedom of Information Act is so important — or why the legislative review of that law desperately needs to strengthen its provisions — it really couldn't be clearer.
Daily Press
From same editorial: This week's thorns go to: State Sen. Richard Saslaw, the Senate minority leader, who is leading the charge to make secret many of the details about the commonwealth's execution process. Someone should tell the Springfield Democrat that punishments carried out in our name should be subject to our scrutiny.
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution entitles every American to equal protection under the law. That should mean that different individuals who commit the same criminal offense should face similar punishment, barring mitigating circumstances. However, data obtained by open-government advocates tells a different story in Virginia. An examination of more than 110,000 case records found that pleading guilty to a crime can lead to vastly different sentences based on the perpetrators' race. That raises troubling questions about the fairness of the Virginia criminal justice system. It raises uncomfortable questions about racial disparity. And we cannot expect court officials to honestly examine themselves — not when they refused to even release the case records database we requested.
Daily Press
A clumsy proposal to muzzle members of the Suffolk City Council failed last week. The effort, from the outset, was just another in a long line of attempts to control the message in a city that has spent far too much time and money on that task, as this page and others have recounted over several years. It was an attempted slam by a bloc on the City Council that was roundly repudiated in November's election. The newcomers were elected on promises that they'd do things differently at City Hall. That they'd be more open, more willing to listen. This vote is evidence that they took those promises seriously. Last week's vote was preceded by an astonishing column by Linda Johnson attacking The News-Herald's editor, who advocated for the defeat of her proposal: "In response to your inflammatory column regarding me and my attempt to 'gag' City Council," the mayor wrote, "I must say that you have hit a new low. Do not even try to say it is not personal, as we both know you do not like or respect me."
Virginian-Pilot
State and Local Stories
Prodded by constituents in Virginia Beach, a member of the House of Delegates introduced legislation this year he hoped would force the Virginia High School League to undo a dramatic overhaul of high school sports enacted more than two years ago. Although HB1415, intended to force the VHSL to alter its voting structure, was tabled by the Education Committee last week, Del. Glenn Davis, R-Virginia Beach, vows to return with legislation next year if the VHSL doesn't do something substantive to reverse those changes. Davis's bill was scheduled to be heard by a subcommittee on Jan. 28, but was instead heard two days earlier by the full Education Committee. The change was not reflected on the General Assembly website until after the vote. Davis said Committee Chairman Steven R. Landes, R-Albemarle County, told him bill was moved to a full committee because he thought the bill had been heard in a subcommittee last year. When Davis asked that a hearing on the bill be delayed until the next committee meeting - a request nearly always granted - Landes declined. It died on an unrecorded voice vote. Attorney and parent Kevin Martingayle had planned to come to Richmond to speak in favor of the bill. Instead, he received a call from Davis' office an hour before the hearing, asking if he could he attend the hearing. "I was in Virginia Beach," he said. "It's just outrageous that they deprived the public a right to participate at this hearing and media a chance to cover it." Davis said he is troubled that the VHSL is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act or state oversight and said he may introduce legislation next year forcing the group to fall under FOIA laws.
Virginian-Pilot
A Chesterfield County communications company has claimed authority to issue statements on behalf of Richmond School Board member Mamie Taylor of the 5th District. In a two-paragraph statement sent by email Friday, Cruz Sherman of Cruz Inc. Global Media, Marketing and Public Relations said his company would be the point of contact for Taylor. “In response to your article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Thursday, February 5, 2015. Any future statements will come from this agency on the behalf of Ms. Taylor,” Cruz said in an email received Friday at 8:42 a.m. “Please direct any and all questions to Cruz Inc Global Media, Marketing and Public Relations.” The message was signed by Sherman, the president of the company. Taylor did not answer her School Board-issued cellphone or respond to a text message or email about the legitimacy of Sherman’s email.
Times-Dispatch
A newly hired employee for the city of Richmond was authorized to take a city vehicle home to Fredericksburg, according to an investigative report by the office of City Auditor/Inspector General Umesh Dalal. The arrangement was temporary until the employee could relocate to the city, according to the report released Wednesday. But the employee relocated to Chesterfield County and continued to commute to and from the county with a city vehicle. On May 12 of last year, the Department of Planning and Development Review hired John G. Walsh, as operations manager for its code enforcement division. Walsh was given permission in his offer letter to use a city vehicle to get to and from Fredericksburg for up to a year, the report said. The report doesn’t accuse Walsh of wrongdoing and makes clear that he appeared to have permission to use the vehicle as he did. But the report suggests Walsh’s superiors overstepped city policy in allowing a take-home vehicle to go as far as Fredericksburg, which is roughly 50 miles from City Hall.
Times-Dispatch
A week after NBC12 broke the story RRHA's CEO was resigning, the agency will not release how much of your money Adrienne Goolsby is walking away with as severance. According to Virginia law in most cases, you are entitled to know how much severance your officials are getting. How your tax dollars are being spent is in fact part of the public record. When we sent a Freedom of Information Act request to RRHA, spokesperson Kiara Green responded: "As we have shared before, RRHA does not comment on personnel matters,” and “We have fulfilled our obligations under FOIA and have no further comment." All week long, we've been going back and forth with RRHA to find out how it is allocating your tax dollars to the CEO, who once led an agency tasked with taking care of the city's poorest residents.
NBC12
Sen. Tommy Norment, leader of the Republicans in the state Senate, faulted the media on Wednesday for raising attention to ethics reform. He told Sen. Dick Saslaw lawmakers were working on ethics reform "because the media is on our back." Norment later told reporters that ethics reform was the news media's "end game." He acknowledged today in a committee hearing that he "probably made some intemperate remarks in front of the media the other day." "Oh, I never do that," Saslaw, a Fairfax County Democrat and one of the most quotable lawmakers, sarcastically responded.
Virginian-Pilot
Sen. Steve Newman’s ethics bill was killed in committee Friday following only brief discussion. Newman’s Senate Bill 777 would have allowed lawmakers to voluntarily register as “gift-free” and put lobbyists on notice that overtures will be unwelcome. Newman, R-Forest, said he knew going in it was going to be a “stretch” to get the bill advanced. It received a lukewarm reception in subcommittee earlier this week and was forwarded with no recommendation. During Friday’s session, committee chairman Sen. Ryan McDougle questioned the need for a formal gift-free listing. “Can’t somebody just put this on their webpage?” McDougle, R-Hanover, asked. Newman said getting out the word individually can be difficult, especially when parties send gifts by mail. The Senate Rules Committee tabled a proposal from Sen. Tom Garrett, R-Buckingham, on Friday that would have created a perjury penalty for those who knowingly lie during General Assembly hearings. The reaction to SB1139 was mixed as some feared it would deter average citizens from speaking or become a tool for political retribution.
News & Advance
Towns and cities in Virginia are perpetually short of cash, but a Charlottesville man says there’s an easy fix. If they could get one state commission to share a single computer file, they could collect at least $200 million. Waldo Jaquith heads U.S. Open Data - a non-profit set up to help people in government understand how to use all the information they gather to better serve the public. Lately he’s been looking at the State Corporation Commission. Anyone who starts a business here is required to register with the SCC. A list of Virginia companies should be public information, but the SCC told Jaquith he would have to pay $150 a month to have a look. He thought that was wrong, so he decided to pay up and prove the point. “The data is terrible. I mean it’s very messy. It’s in a format that I’ve never heard of that I gather was popular in the early 1980’s.” “I got an e-mail from a woman out of the blue who works for a town in Virginia, and she asked if there was some way for her to get the list of corporations registered in their town, and she explained to me that they, like many municipalities throughout Virginia, charge a business license fee. They have no way of knowing what businesses are registered in the town, so they don’t know who’s not paying their license fees.” He wrote some code to get her that information, and then he shared it with the revenue director of his home town.
WVTF
Business interests spent nearly $9,000 hosting 32 elected officials at two plush Richmond events early in the 2014 General Assembly — and 30 of the politicians never mentioned it in their financial disclosure forms. The gap between what lobbyists report to the state, and what politicians do, can be wide — and hard to track down. The practice of splitting the tab for a dinner or gift among several clients means lobbyists don't have to say who got the freebie. Legislators, meanwhile, rely on what lobbyists tell them about the value of gifts and dinners when making their required financial disclosures — the basic tool Virginia relies on to ensure that its public officials act in the public interest, not to their personal benefit.
Daily Press
Free to speak — or not? During a Suffolk City Council meeting Wednesday in which government transparency and communication were major recurring themes, Vice Mayor Leroy Bennett wondered aloud why city employees might have been told not to talk to members of City Council. “Some of them are telling me that there has been a letter or memo or something out that they are not supposed to talk with council members,” he said. In the days since, an email from Chief of Staff Debbie George and minutes of a meeting conducted by Fire Chief Cedric Scott have surfaced, showing that employees have, indeed, been instructed to route requests for information from council members through the city manager’s office. On Thursday, the News-Herald obtained minutes of a fire department staff meeting on May 14, 2014. The following statement appears under the heading, “Fire Chief’s Report”: “Should you receive a phone or email message to contact a Councilperson from anyone outside of the City Manager’s Office, please forward that request to your respective Deputy Chief via your Chain of Command to be forwarded to Chief of Staff. All inquiries and requests from City Council should come through the City Manager’s Office where they can be properly logged, reviewed, assigned and updated.”
Suffolk News-Herald
It was business as usual at the Virginia Beach City Council's budget workshop last week - despite the fact that two of the elected officials in the room were under investigations. On Thursday, Mayor Will Sessoms was at the head of a long table in the Brock Environmental Center; Councilman John Uhrin sat to his right. A special prosecutor from Lynchburg was named in November to investigate whether some of Sessoms' votes might have broken state conflict-of-interest laws. While serving as mayor and as a TowneBank president, Sessoms cast dozens of votes involving bank clients who had borrowed at least $140 million from the institution, according to an investigation by The Virginian-Pilot. The FBI opened a criminal investigation into Uhrin's 2013 vote to approve millions in taxpayer incentives to renovate The Cavalier Hotel and allow a luxury housing community on the site weeks before his wife, Catherine J. Sassone, was hired to market the homes. A federal grand jury ordered Virginia Beach to turn over computer records, emails and phone logs. Virginia Beach officials said neither the council nor the city's staff are considering policy changes to try to prevent future investigations, but that they are working to make sure the city gets better responses to financial disclosure questions from applicants for zoning changes.
Virginian-Pilot
A bill in the General Assembly would require colleges and universities to list “consumer information” — including average tuition and fee increases over the past 10 years — on their websites. The bill, introduced by Del. Timothy D. Hugo, R-Fairfax, has sailed through the House unopposed and has been referred to committee in the Senate. It is part of a larger movement in the government to require universities to disclose information that could help in the decision-making of students and families researching higher education. In addition to information on tuition and fees, universities also would have to link to a page displaying graduation and retention rates — as well as budgeting information — on the homepages of their websites.
News Virginian
A Fairfax County judge on Friday ordered county police to release their internal affairs reports in the 2013 fatal police shooting of a Springfield man and to continue to turn over such reports even as the internal investigation continues. Judge Randy I. Bellows made the decision in the civil suit filed by the family of John B. Geer, who was shot as he stood unarmed in the doorway of his townhouse by a county police officer. No decision has been made on whether to charge the officer, Adam D. Torres, who remains on paid administrative duty. Bellows required county police to turn over only its factual reports in the shooting to Geer’s family attorneys, not materials showing internal deliberations or discipline. The police did not launch an internal investigation until September, after Geer’s longtime partner, Maura Harrington, filed suit against Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr., Torres and the department on behalf of the couple’s two teenage daughters.
Washington Post
National Stories
Thanks to controversy surrounding a student newspaper’s Freedom of Information Act request, the public now knows that Jack White is currently on a “no banana” tour, that he prefers his guacamole “chunky” and that he doesn’t think much of journalism degrees. Those details were revealed after the University of Oklahoma’s OU Daily got curious about White’s sold-out performance at the university’s McCasland Field House. Staffers wanted to see how much the University was paying White to perform (upwards of $80,000, it turns out), so they filed a FOIA request for the contract.
Poynter Editorials/Columns
Sunshine Week arrived early this year in Richmond. On the eve of the 2015 session of the General Assembly, a new coalition joined the action. At a news conference, Transparency Virginia signaled its presence to the commonwealth. Its mission? Working with legislators to ensure fair procedure is followed in legislative committees. The idea began in an exchange in November between a senator’s staff and two groups discussing a proposed bill. One veteran advocate noted glumly, “Of course, the subcommittee will kill it again, without a recorded vote.” At that moment, a spark ignited. Suddenly, another participant asked, “Why do we keep accepting that, year after year?”
Anne Sterling, Times-Dispatch
When government makes decisions, large and small, it should be done in front of the public. That's a simple, straightforward and reasonable expectation — but one that we see violated time and again throughout Hampton Roads, to our chagrin and, frankly, our astonishment. Take the recent discussion in York County for instance. At last week's Board of Supervisors meeting, members discussed the potential benefits and liabilities of having the board's chairman and vice chairman meet privately with their counterparts on the York County School Board to discuss budget matters. Suffolk City Council members are considering amending their code of ethics to prohibit disclosing any information discussed in closed sessions. As it is written, there are no formal consequences to violating that provision, should the council adopt it. If ever you wondered why Virginia's Freedom of Information Act is so important — or why the legislative review of that law desperately needs to strengthen its provisions — it really couldn't be clearer.
Daily Press
From same editorial: This week's thorns go to: State Sen. Richard Saslaw, the Senate minority leader, who is leading the charge to make secret many of the details about the commonwealth's execution process. Someone should tell the Springfield Democrat that punishments carried out in our name should be subject to our scrutiny.
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution entitles every American to equal protection under the law. That should mean that different individuals who commit the same criminal offense should face similar punishment, barring mitigating circumstances. However, data obtained by open-government advocates tells a different story in Virginia. An examination of more than 110,000 case records found that pleading guilty to a crime can lead to vastly different sentences based on the perpetrators' race. That raises troubling questions about the fairness of the Virginia criminal justice system. It raises uncomfortable questions about racial disparity. And we cannot expect court officials to honestly examine themselves — not when they refused to even release the case records database we requested.
Daily Press
A clumsy proposal to muzzle members of the Suffolk City Council failed last week. The effort, from the outset, was just another in a long line of attempts to control the message in a city that has spent far too much time and money on that task, as this page and others have recounted over several years. It was an attempted slam by a bloc on the City Council that was roundly repudiated in November's election. The newcomers were elected on promises that they'd do things differently at City Hall. That they'd be more open, more willing to listen. This vote is evidence that they took those promises seriously. Last week's vote was preceded by an astonishing column by Linda Johnson attacking The News-Herald's editor, who advocated for the defeat of her proposal: "In response to your inflammatory column regarding me and my attempt to 'gag' City Council," the mayor wrote, "I must say that you have hit a new low. Do not even try to say it is not personal, as we both know you do not like or respect me."
Virginian-Pilot
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