A bill seeking to clarify what is already in Virginia Code regarding how citizens can enforce their rights under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has been continued to next General Assembly session. House Bill 159—which was introduced by Del. Marcus Simon and was partially inspired by a FOIA case that went before Spotsylvania General District Court in 2024—passed the House of Representatives unanimously in January, but was continued by the Senate Committee on General Laws and Technology last week by a vote of 13-to-1. … Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, said that in the past 18 months, three separate litigants (one in Spotsylvania) have had their cases dismissed because they didn’t have their petitions served by the Sheriff or third party civil process server. “That’s not in the law,” Rhyne said. “This bill is just trying to say, ‘Hey, that’s not in the law, so don’t make them get a third party service to serve this petition to them.’ There was no opposition to HB159 entered by either the Virginia Association of Counties or the Virginia Municipal League. However, Randy Eads, general counsel for the Office of the Attorney General, spoke in opposition to the bill before the Senate committee last week. Eads, who served as Bristol City Manager before taking the job with the OAG in January, said his concern is not “with the bill overall” but with “technicalities of service of process.” … The law firm Sands Anderson, which represents many local governments and school boards in Virginia, also recommended that public bodies reach out to express concern about HB159 and several other pending FOIA bills.

In an opinion issued late Monday, Richmond Circuit Court Judge Claire G. Cardwell faulted the city for a “reckless failure” to preserve the work cell phone issued to former city spokeswoman Petula Burks, who fired former FOIA officer Connie Clay in early 2024. … At several points in the 21-page document, Cardwell says the city’s representatives have made statements in court that are not true. The city’s actions caused “prejudice” to Clay, the judge ruled, because it took eight court hearings for her to learn that “the evidence she seeks no longer exists” because the phone was lost. … Because the drawn-out fight over evidence discovery in the case showed a “general lack of respect for the Court’s orders,” the judge wrote, the city must pay Clay’s attorneys fees for five legal motions she had to file over the course of 2025. The exact amount of the fees the city will have to pay is unknown, but they will add to the $633,000 in legal bills the city has already incurred so far.

Crime dropped in Leesburg last year, but trends for the rest of Loudoun County remain unclear. On Feb. 3, Loudoun Now reached out to the Leesburg Police and asked for the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) Agency Overview for the department for 2025. The document shows all crimes reported in the town, as well as arrests made for each offense. LPD Public Information Officer Michele Bowman quickly sent the report by email, which allowed Loudoun Nowto analyze the crime numbers and compare them to previous years. Earlier this year, Loudoun Now had asked the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office for the same information and was told to file a Freedom of Information Act request. A request was filed on Feb. 3 for “complete crime statistics for 2025 listed in accordance with FBI UCR [uniform crime reporting] standards.” On Feb. 9, LCSO FOIA officer Maryellen Clarke responded saying such a document does not exist. Loudoun Now asked the Sheriff’s Office for the document and advised them that LPD had provided their version on Feb. 10 via email and was told on Feb. 17 by Media Relations and Communications Director Tom Julia, “We looked into this again today and the document provided by LPD was created from data on the state web site. Since it is preliminary for 2025, it is not yet available in the public access section of that site. If it were final, the LCSO’s would be there too, and I would be directing you to that link. While we do not fulfill a FOIA for documents created by another agency, I consulted with our team and if you resubmit the FOIA request we will provide what we reported to the state in a format that is analogous to what you received from LPD.”

On Feb. 10, The Times-Dispatch submitted a request under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act for copies of any and all 2025 payment records and correspondence between the Richmond sheriff’s office and the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE. In a Feb. 19 response — a day past the deadline established by state law — Catherine Green, a spokesperson for Sheriff Antionette Irving, said the sheriff’s office was in possession of only one responsive record: a May email from a DHS official requesting a meeting with Irving to “introduce himself.” But on Tuesday, Green contacted The Times-Dispatch again to disclose documents that she said had accidentally been omitted from her first response. The updated response, which was four days overdue, included 27 pages of detainers and email correspondence between DHS and sheriff’s deputies. The records show the sheriff’s office shared details on the location and status of at least two inmates, but also declined to fulfill detainer requests without judicial warrants.

In December, Chief Administrative Officer Odie Donald II cautioned members of City Council against relying on unaudited financial figures from last year when developing tax and fiscal policy. Those unaudited figures showed City Hall had netted a $22 million surplus in 2025. At the time, Donald said that the number was “preliminary” and “subject to change,” and encouraged the councilmembers to wait on the completion of the city’s annual comprehensive financial report — or ACFR — before making any big decisions. But for months, Mayor Danny Avula’s administration has been assembling a city budget for the coming fiscal year without a finalized ACFR. Officials on Monday said that, on Friday afternoon, the report had finally been completed — 74 days after its Dec. 15 due date set by city code and state law. That completion came after officials missed their third straight deadline, according to a memo sent from Donald to City Council on Friday.