After facing criticism for spending 1.5 million taxpayer dollars and taking 28 months to release a review of the 2022 shooting at the University of Virginia that claimed three students’ lives, UVa released a copy of the review Friday — with as many redacted pages as unredacted. “Jones, the convicted gunman, declined the University’s request to waive his federal student privacy protections,” wrote UVa spokesman Brian Coy in a prepared statement, “therefore significant portions of the reports were required to be redacted.” That excuse, as previously reported, found little favor with privacy experts who contend that UVa is using an unnecessarily broad interpretation of the law. The reports, what is publicly available, place some of the blame for what happened on UVa’s deference to tradition, including its long history of student self-governance. Such an explanation rings hollow to Michael Haggard, an attorney for three of the victims’ families.

There appears to be no provision in FOIA that this office is aware of that would seem to preclude the utilization of a declaratory judgment action in the adjudication of a FOIA dispute. While the case law from Virginia courts as previously examined appears to present differing results, the final conclusion appears to be that declaratory judgment is available under appropriate circumstances, but otherwise the petition for mandamus or injunction would be the sole remedy available under FOIA.

Former Culpeper County Sheriff Scott Jenkins was sentenced Friday to 10 years in federal prison for accepting over $75,000 in bribes in exchange for appointing numerous Northern Virginia businessmen as auxiliary deputy sheriffs within his department. In December 2024, a jury convicted Jenkins, 53, of Culpeper, of one count of conspiracy, four counts of honest services fraud and seven counts of bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds. Jenkins served as sheriff from 2012 to 2023.

A recent closed meeting was the source of some tension among Martinsville officials. At their meeting [this] week, members of the Martinsville City Council are expected to address concerns expressed by member Aaron Rawls about the timing and purpose of the body’s March 17 closed special session, in which they discussed the contract of City Manager Aretha Ferrell-Benavides. The meeting was a continuation of contract talks from October, according to Mayor L.C. Jones. In an email he sent to his fellow council members and later shared with members of the media, Rawls said that the meeting’s timing was a point of concern. Rawls did not attend the meeting due to a schedule conflict. Rawls said to councilors that while he doesn’t expect his schedule to be prioritized, he doesn’t feel that simply adhering to Virginia’s FOIA is enough. “I do ask that we be provided with reasonable advance notice, in addition to a proper agenda with defined topics,” Rawls wrote. “An open session where we discuss spending our citizens’ money should never be a spur of the moment event. It’s not just disrespectful to citizens; it’s risky.” Jones said he intends to discuss the council’s concerns about information from the March 17 closed session being leaked. He did not specify who the leaker might be.

Payments made to city of Richmond employees who worked overtime dipped in 2024, but the city still paid more than $26 million to its staff, with numerous workers taking home five figures in overtime pay every month. The majority of that spending went to the police and fire departments, which accounted for 41% and 26% of the city’s overtime pay in 2024, respectively. For many employees, overtime can be unusually lucrative: At least 44 employees earned more than $10,000 in overtime pay in a single month last year. Newly seated Councilor Kenya Gibson (3rd District) described herself as “taken aback” by the January report, particularly because Department of Public Utilities employees — who city officials have said worked “around-the-clock” during the January water crisis — did not top the overtime list. Because overtime wasn’t on the agenda for the meeting where Gibson raised it, Councilor Katherine Jordan (2nd District) suggested putting it on the agenda for the next Governmental Operations Committee meeting, which is scheduled to discuss it March 26.