Transparency News 3/10/15
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
State and Local Stories
Sheriff Bob McCabe says he wants to talk to the City Council about the needs of the City Jail – if only he could get the attention of City Manager Marcus Jones. McCabe says he asked Jones in early December whether he could address the council. Three months later, he still is waiting for the opportunity. On Saturday, McCabe emailed council members, laying out his frustration in a letter and providing a copy of the PowerPoint presentation he had hoped to give. “I requested to present this in person at an informal council session; however, the opportunity was not afforded,” McCabe wrote to the council members and Jones. McCabe does not mention Jones by name in the letter, but the source of his problem is clear.
Virginian-Pilot
In the first full year of a new partnership, Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles offices handled more than 100,000 requests for birth certificates. The new program gives customers statewide a same-day service once available only in Richmond. The Lynchburg office alone provided 3,048 birth certificates, making it the sixth busiest in the state, according to the DMV. “That’s 3,048 people who previously would have had to drive to Richmond to get their birth certificate or apply to get it by mail,” DMV Commissioner Richard Holcomb said. “Now they can go to a DMV customer service office and walk away from the counter with it in hand.” Official copies of Virginia birth certificates once were available solely from the Office of Vital Records in Richmond. In 2013, a bill sponsored by Sen. Steve Newman, R-Lynchburg, set up an internal partnership to expand that service to the DMV and its 80 offices and mobile outlets.
News & Advance
A Spotsylvania County high-schooler recently proclaimed on Twitter that she had “finally met the queen.” And she had the evidence to prove it—a picture with the “snow queen” herself, School Board member Amanda Blalock. You see, Blalock is almost always the first to announce snow-related closings on social media, earning her celebrity status in the eyes of many students. Her official Facebook page has more than 8,000 “likes,” and she has more than 2,000 Twitter followers, most of them students. She started her official School Board Facebook page in January 2012, after seeing a lot of interest in school-related posts on her personal page. Now most of her messages about closings receive hundreds of likes and replies. And last month, she received more than 1,200 replies to a post asking when the next school year should start. Blalock will delete posts that include personal attacks or vulgar language. But all other comments, criticism included, are fair game. “I want to keep Facebook honest,” she says. “I don’t have to like your opinion to leave it up there.”
Free Lance-Star
Augusta County sheriff’s deputies are investigating what appears to be a spam attack on the local school system. On Feb. 25, the district’s computer system was overloaded with data coming in, one of several incidents that happened to customers operating on the Lumos network. In some cases, the attack caused the system to drag at slower speeds, while other customers, like the school district, had to reboot after a crash. Lumos officials did not return calls for comment by press time. There is no indication that any personal information was taken, due to the type of attack.
News Virginian
National Stories
Government officials agreed to pay The (Toledo, Ohio) Blade $18,000 after the paper filed a 2014 lawsuit alleging journalists Jetta Fraser and Tyrel Linkhorn were unlawfully detained. The money is compensation “for seizing the cameras of a photographer and deleting photographs” that were taken before the two journalists were detained at the Lima (Ohio) Army Tank Plant. Among other things, the complaint filed by The Blade alleges that three military police officers stopped and questioned Fraser and Linkhorn after Fraser identified herself as a photographer for the paper and explained why the pair were taking pictures. Fraser was ordered out of the passenger side of a Toledo Blade-owned car and handcuffed “for more than an hour,” Feehan writes. The complaint also says the military police officers referred to Fraser, a female, using masculine terms. After she objected and requested the officer use the appropriate form of address, one of the military police officers said, “You say you are a female, I’m going to go under your bra,” according to the complaint.
Poynter
A new task force charged with cutting some of Illinois' nearly 7,000 local governments, the highest number of any U.S. state, will be unveiled this week, according to the state's lieutenant governor. With a plethora of local governments that tax residents - from mosquito abatement districts to cemetery authorities - "everything is on the table," Lieutenant Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti, a Republican, who is in charge of the task force, told Reuters. The number of local government units is so great that nobody is sure exactly how many there are, and it depends on who is counting, Sanguinetti said. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the state has 6,963 local governments. But the Illinois Comptroller's Office says the number is far greater, with nearly 8,500 local government units registered in 2014, the latest figure available.
Reuters
State and Local Stories
Sheriff Bob McCabe says he wants to talk to the City Council about the needs of the City Jail – if only he could get the attention of City Manager Marcus Jones. McCabe says he asked Jones in early December whether he could address the council. Three months later, he still is waiting for the opportunity. On Saturday, McCabe emailed council members, laying out his frustration in a letter and providing a copy of the PowerPoint presentation he had hoped to give. “I requested to present this in person at an informal council session; however, the opportunity was not afforded,” McCabe wrote to the council members and Jones. McCabe does not mention Jones by name in the letter, but the source of his problem is clear.
Virginian-Pilot
In the first full year of a new partnership, Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles offices handled more than 100,000 requests for birth certificates. The new program gives customers statewide a same-day service once available only in Richmond. The Lynchburg office alone provided 3,048 birth certificates, making it the sixth busiest in the state, according to the DMV. “That’s 3,048 people who previously would have had to drive to Richmond to get their birth certificate or apply to get it by mail,” DMV Commissioner Richard Holcomb said. “Now they can go to a DMV customer service office and walk away from the counter with it in hand.” Official copies of Virginia birth certificates once were available solely from the Office of Vital Records in Richmond. In 2013, a bill sponsored by Sen. Steve Newman, R-Lynchburg, set up an internal partnership to expand that service to the DMV and its 80 offices and mobile outlets.
News & Advance
A Spotsylvania County high-schooler recently proclaimed on Twitter that she had “finally met the queen.” And she had the evidence to prove it—a picture with the “snow queen” herself, School Board member Amanda Blalock. You see, Blalock is almost always the first to announce snow-related closings on social media, earning her celebrity status in the eyes of many students. Her official Facebook page has more than 8,000 “likes,” and she has more than 2,000 Twitter followers, most of them students. She started her official School Board Facebook page in January 2012, after seeing a lot of interest in school-related posts on her personal page. Now most of her messages about closings receive hundreds of likes and replies. And last month, she received more than 1,200 replies to a post asking when the next school year should start. Blalock will delete posts that include personal attacks or vulgar language. But all other comments, criticism included, are fair game. “I want to keep Facebook honest,” she says. “I don’t have to like your opinion to leave it up there.”
Free Lance-Star
Augusta County sheriff’s deputies are investigating what appears to be a spam attack on the local school system. On Feb. 25, the district’s computer system was overloaded with data coming in, one of several incidents that happened to customers operating on the Lumos network. In some cases, the attack caused the system to drag at slower speeds, while other customers, like the school district, had to reboot after a crash. Lumos officials did not return calls for comment by press time. There is no indication that any personal information was taken, due to the type of attack.
News Virginian
National Stories
Government officials agreed to pay The (Toledo, Ohio) Blade $18,000 after the paper filed a 2014 lawsuit alleging journalists Jetta Fraser and Tyrel Linkhorn were unlawfully detained. The money is compensation “for seizing the cameras of a photographer and deleting photographs” that were taken before the two journalists were detained at the Lima (Ohio) Army Tank Plant. Among other things, the complaint filed by The Blade alleges that three military police officers stopped and questioned Fraser and Linkhorn after Fraser identified herself as a photographer for the paper and explained why the pair were taking pictures. Fraser was ordered out of the passenger side of a Toledo Blade-owned car and handcuffed “for more than an hour,” Feehan writes. The complaint also says the military police officers referred to Fraser, a female, using masculine terms. After she objected and requested the officer use the appropriate form of address, one of the military police officers said, “You say you are a female, I’m going to go under your bra,” according to the complaint.
Poynter
A new task force charged with cutting some of Illinois' nearly 7,000 local governments, the highest number of any U.S. state, will be unveiled this week, according to the state's lieutenant governor. With a plethora of local governments that tax residents - from mosquito abatement districts to cemetery authorities - "everything is on the table," Lieutenant Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti, a Republican, who is in charge of the task force, told Reuters. The number of local government units is so great that nobody is sure exactly how many there are, and it depends on who is counting, Sanguinetti said. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the state has 6,963 local governments. But the Illinois Comptroller's Office says the number is far greater, with nearly 8,500 local government units registered in 2014, the latest figure available.
Reuters
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