Transparency News, 3/10/20

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March 10, 2020

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It wasn’t illegal for a businessman to shower gifts on Norfolk Sheriff Bob McCabe, defense attorneys argue. Even though the sheriff oversaw millions of dollars in government contracts that benefitted Jerry Boyle’s longtime company, the attorneys said there was no explicit quid pro quo. “Such a broad-sweeping and ill defined theory of bribery is indisputably inconsistent with prevailing law,” Boyle’s attorneys wrote in court documents, echoing a sentiment voiced by McCabe’s lawyers. They argued prosecutors were seeking “to criminalize any and all gifts” their client gave McCabe as well as any actions taken by the sheriff’s office that "tangentially” benefited Boyle’s former company, Correct Care Solutions.
The Virginian-Pilot

Beneath the plans for compensating public employees, moderating college tuition and giving dental benefits to adults in Medicaid, the pending two-year state budget includes $25 million in bonds for a tunnel to connect the Virginia Capitol and the new General Assembly Building. The budget provision would fulfill a long-standing desire of the Senate that has become more acute because of concerns about security and safety in the Capitol complex in downtown Richmond. “All I can say is the Senate really, really wanted it,” said Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax, vice chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and a member of the conference committee that negotiated a budget agreement late Saturday. “It was one of the last items to close the deal.”
Richmond Times-Dispatch

Virginian Beach’s Convention Visitors Bureau has been in flux since last summer, when its director resigned. The City Council is now considering turning its tourism department into a nonprofit to give it more flexibility with procurement, compensation and hiring and firing.
The Virginian-Pilot

A bill requiring Virginia police departments to create a written policy on body cameras before the department can purchase or deploy a body-camera system has been signed by Gov. Ralph Northam. “Body-worn cameras provide important evidence and context, especially when the facts of an interaction between an officer and a member of the public are in dispute,” Northam said Wednesday in a news release announcing a number of bill signings. “Model policies will help ensure public input across the Commonwealth and will increase needed transparency in our criminal justice process.”
Washington Examiner

stories of national interest

"The [Colorado] open meetings law requires 'the list of all finalists under consideration' for a chief executive position be made public no later than 14 days prior to the appointment of one of the finalists."

Rejecting the University of Colorado regents’ interpretation of the open records law as “linguistic gymnastics,” a Denver District Court judge Friday ordered CU to produce the names and applications of six candidates interviewed for the president’s job that went to Mark Kennedy last year. Judge A. Bruce Jones found that the board of regents violated the Colorado Open Records Act when it provided only Kennedy’s application to the Boulder Daily Camera in response to the newspaper’s requests for the names and application materials of all finalists. Although Kennedy was the sole finalist named by CU, Jones concluded that six candidates should have been considered “finalists” under CORA and the Colorado Open Meetings Law. The open meetings law requires “the list of all finalists under consideration” for a chief executive position be made public no later than 14 days prior to the appointment of one of the finalists.
CFOIC

A federal judge today told government attorneys that a lengthy delay in producing public documents to SELC was “incomprehensible” and “somewhat outrageous,” but also told attorneys he did not have the authority to order the government to extend the public comment period over changes proposed to the National Environmental Policy Act. SELC Senior Attorney Kym Hunter argued that getting the public documents would help promote “transparency in government” and would ensure the public could offer more detailed comments on the proposed NEPA changes. She argued in legal papers and again in a Roanoke federal court today that it would be unfair for the government to close the comment period before it had produced the required public documents. Judge Conrad ruled that FOIA law does not give him the authority to alter the length of the public-comment period as a remedy. However, he made it clear the government delays in producing the public records were not acceptable and invited SELC to take the larger question to a higher court.
Southern Environmental Law Center

In 2019, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press announced its Local Legal Initiative, an ambitious expansion of its legal services to provide direct, targeted legal support for local enterprise and investigative reporting in five jurisdictions across the country. Made possible by generous support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Local Legal Initiative, or LLI, expects to add a Reporters Committee attorney in Colorado, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee in 2020. In all, we received 45 proposals representing more than 30 states, territories, and regions. More than 240 organizations, newsrooms and individuals submitted or signed on to a proposal for a Reporters Committee attorney in their jurisdiction. Here’s what we learned from the proposals:
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press