Transparency News 3/17/15
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
State and Local Stories
A Richmond Circuit Court judge ruled Monday to keep associations representing educators and school boards out of a parent’s legal fight to obtain evaluation data for individual teachers. Brian Davison, a Loudoun County parent, sued the Virginia Department of Education to get student-growth percentile data, saying that he believed that the public has a right to know what the data says about the quality of public school teachers. In January, Judge Melvin R. Hughes ordered the department to release all of the data, including the names and license numbers of teachers across Virginia. The release of the teacher names was halted when several professional associations representing teachers, school administrators and school boards filed motions to intervene. The Virginia Education Association argued that the data should be considered confidential personnel information. Others have panned student-growth percentiles because they say the data can unfairly paint a teacher as ineffective. On Monday, Hughes denied their motions to intervene in the case, saying they had no standing to do so, according to state education department spokesman Charles Pyle. But the judge said he would still consider a request from the state education department to re-hear the case and a motion from the Loudoun County School Board to intervene.
Washington Post
Public officials around Virginia use their personal email for official correspondence — exposing weaknesses in the state’s open-records laws. In King George County, for example, supervisors Dale Sisson and Cedell Brooks list their personal email addresses on the county’s website. They do not use the county-issued email accounts used by their colleagues. “This should be a requirement,” local activist Mary Trout said of the county email system. Trout has been stymied in efforts to retrieve official email correspondences by Sisson and Brooks because the county does not archive them.
Watchdog.org Virginia Bureau
NOTE: According to the reporter, after this story was published, “Dale Sisson’s name pops up on the King George website with a county-owned e-dress.”
Sometimes, the problem isn't only what the public doesn't know — it's what public officials don't. When Daily Press reporter Travis Fain started digging into the reasons why a never-built road — a public-private partnership for a toll road to replace U.S. 460 between South Hampton Roads and Petersburg — cost $290 million, he found the Hampton Roads representative on the state agency that approved the deal hadn't read the 773-page contract for the deal. In fact, months later, when Aubrey Layne was named secretary of Transportation, he didn't realize the contract could be read online, until Fain told him. When Layne started reading, it was to look for a way out of a complicated deal that had already cost the state millions, and that could leave Virginia owing still more money to its private partner for a road it never built. Fain was reading, too. His reading list included a list of contractors on the project and documents received from a standing Freedom of Information Act request for monthly bills for the project.
Daily Press
Altavista officials refused to explain the recent absence of the town’s police chief Monday as Virginia State Police enters the third week of its criminal investigation into the Altavista Police Department today. Altavista Police Chief Ken Walsh hasn’t responded to multiple interview requests from The News & Advance since March 3, when a town news release announced two police department employees were put on administrative leave because of the investigation. “I doubt you will reach him on his work number because that phone was taken away … It was taken away a few weeks ago,” Town Councilman Tracy Emerson said Monday. He referred all other questions to Town Manager Waverly Coggsdale. Coggsdale confirmed in an email Monday two employees remain on leave with pay, but wouldn’t name them or explain why Walsh’s phone was taken because they’re “personnel” issues, which can be exempt from Virginia’s public records laws. Citing the same exemption, he declined to say who is managing the day-to-day operations of the police department.
News & Advance
It will probably be a tough battle for those who want to hold the 700-odd local authorities, boards and commissions in Virginia accountable, as there’s been little willpower to do so. The General Assembly has done nothing in 15 years to correct the errors found by a 1999 audit, revealing local governments have created hundreds of so-called supervisory entities, which control hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars but aren’t necessarily accountable to taxpayers. The state doesn’t even have a full list of just what those organizations — everything from jail authorities to library boards — are, let alone have any audits on file for them. But requiring some sort of reporting from the authorities, boards and commissions that don’t yet have clear requirements won’t be easy. “Local governments are not going to be happy about this,” said John Watkins, a Republican from Petersburg who chairs the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission.
Watchdog.org Virginia Bureau
This month, the Town of Windsor is getting its own newspaper — and it’s free. Windsor Weekly, which is to debut on Saturday, March 28, will feature stories and photos on town and county issues, schools, civil and social clubs, businesses, sports and any other interests that concern the people. A cooperative effort of The Tidewater News and The Suffolk News-Herald, it’s a product that has been in the making for the past few years.
Tidewater News
National Stories
The Black Hole recognition, for damaging access to public information in Oklahoma, went to Judge Howard Haralson for turning his courtroom into a black hole during an important divorce case, that of Oklahoma oil magnate Harold Hamm.
FOI Oklahoma
The White House is removing a federal regulation that subjects its Office of Administration to the Freedom of Information Act, making official a policy under Presidents Bush and Obama to reject requests for records to that office. The White House said the cleanup of FOIA regulations is consistent with court rulings that hold that the office is not subject to the transparency law. The office handles, among other things, White House record-keeping duties like the archiving of e-mails. But the timing of the move raised eyebrows among transparency advocates, coming on National Freedom of Information Day and during a national debate over the preservation of Obama administration records. It's also Sunshine Week, an effort by news organizations and watchdog groups to highlight issues of government transparency.
USA Today
Three federal agencies didn't bother to submit mandatory reports to the Department of Justice on their compliance with the federal Freedom of Information Act in 2014. The Departments of Education, Homeland Security and Treasury each earned "F" grades on Cause of Action's FOIA Report Card as a result of their failure to comply with the law's reporting requirement. The reports were due Dec. 15, 2014, and have been required on an annual basis since 2008. Cause of Action is a Washington-based nonprofit that focuses on litigation on behalf of greater transparency and accountability in government. The group's FOIA report card was made public Monday as part of Sunshine Week, an annual series of events and projects hosted by news groups and nonprofit organizations dedicated to promoting open government.
Washington Examiner
Lobbyists say you can’t expect a legislator to change a vote based on a nice meal or even a good seat at a concert or a ball game. That’s probably true most of the time. But lobbyists are salespeople hired to persuade decision-makers in the Legislature and in the agencies of the executive branch. They are not necessarily interested in feeding and watering those officials, but in having enough time together to make a case for whatever notion they’re pushing. The dinners, drinks and entertainment make the face time a little more pleasant, but it is the face time — not the steaks and bourbon — that make the spending worthwhile from the lobbyists’ standpoint. “You’re building a relationship that 26 million people don’t have,” says Jim Clancy, an attorney and a member of the Texas Ethics Commission. Which is why it is relatively meaningless to have a lobby reporting law that does not attach the name of the beneficiaries to the benefits.
Governing
Mackinac Center Gets FOIA Charges Reduced from $1,550 to $50.
Marckinac Center
Editorials/Columns
The smartphones most Americans carry in their pockets dwarf the computing power of the Apollo spacecraft that ferried astronauts to the moon and back. Email addresses were generally rare until the 1990s; innovation now takes place at a breathtaking pace. Technology should be a powerful tool for strengthening the relationship between citizens and their government. It can bolster access to information, allow more opportunities for public participation and promote a greater understanding of civic affairs. Sunshine Week (March 15-21) affords us an opportunity to examine issues involving government transparency and public access. Technology weighs heavily on those matters now, and is certain to play an influential role in the future. Yet, in order to maximize its potential, Virginia's open government laws must keep pace with innovation, and more elected officials should capitalize on the chance to use technology as an avenue for educating and engaging the public.
Daily Press
“It’s not the Economic Development Authority’s money,” says state Sen. John Watkins, adding that the Freedom of Information Act is “pretty clear. ... If you’re going to spend tax dollars, there’s got to be a public record of where and how those tax dollars are spent.” But that’s not the case with the deal between Stone Brewing and Richmond to which Watkins was referring, and which used millions of public dollars to bring the brewery to River City. The city worked out the details through its Economic Development Authority, and the EDA has come to terms with Hourigan Construction, which is now deeply into the project. Nevertheless, the public can’t see any of the details because of a wrinkle in state law. The contracts for the project have not received every last signature, tittle and jot. Until they do, they’re technically subject to revision, which means they are technically still in negotiation, which means they’re exempt from public scrutiny.
Times-Dispatch
All this week, news organizations across the nation are observing Sunshine Week to remind citizens of the importance of open government and the laws that empower the individual and the media to keep an eye on the doings and goings-on of their government. Sunshine Week, a project of the American Society of News Editors (ASNE), coincides with the birthday of President James Madison and National Freedom of Information Day on March 16. Madison, one of the primary authors of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, was — it’s fair to say — obsessed over the possibility that government could become too big and too unwieldy for citizens to control. In drafting the Constitution, he put in place a myriad of checks and balances between and within the three branches that endure to this day. Over the years, though, it has occasionally been a struggle for the average citizen and the news media, acting on behalf of the public, to get government to live up the levels of openness and transparency Madison and the Founders envisioned. One such incident involved a Nelson County couple — Lee and Paulette Albright — who, literally and figuratively, smelled something fishy in the rationale a state agency was giving for closing the state fish hatchery in Montebello.
News & Advance
Don’t take it personally? That’s usually good advice, but today we urge the opposite reaction to all government bodies operating in the shadows, purposely avoiding public scrutiny and genuine transparency. In other words, take closed government personally. Please! Take it personally when a reporter is kicked out of a city council meeting so members can hold an illegal or unnecessary executive session. Take it personally when public access to government records is refused, limited or attached to excessive fees.
Brian J. Hunhoff, Times-Dispatch
State and Local Stories
A Richmond Circuit Court judge ruled Monday to keep associations representing educators and school boards out of a parent’s legal fight to obtain evaluation data for individual teachers. Brian Davison, a Loudoun County parent, sued the Virginia Department of Education to get student-growth percentile data, saying that he believed that the public has a right to know what the data says about the quality of public school teachers. In January, Judge Melvin R. Hughes ordered the department to release all of the data, including the names and license numbers of teachers across Virginia. The release of the teacher names was halted when several professional associations representing teachers, school administrators and school boards filed motions to intervene. The Virginia Education Association argued that the data should be considered confidential personnel information. Others have panned student-growth percentiles because they say the data can unfairly paint a teacher as ineffective. On Monday, Hughes denied their motions to intervene in the case, saying they had no standing to do so, according to state education department spokesman Charles Pyle. But the judge said he would still consider a request from the state education department to re-hear the case and a motion from the Loudoun County School Board to intervene.
Washington Post
Public officials around Virginia use their personal email for official correspondence — exposing weaknesses in the state’s open-records laws. In King George County, for example, supervisors Dale Sisson and Cedell Brooks list their personal email addresses on the county’s website. They do not use the county-issued email accounts used by their colleagues. “This should be a requirement,” local activist Mary Trout said of the county email system. Trout has been stymied in efforts to retrieve official email correspondences by Sisson and Brooks because the county does not archive them.
Watchdog.org Virginia Bureau
NOTE: According to the reporter, after this story was published, “Dale Sisson’s name pops up on the King George website with a county-owned e-dress.”
Sometimes, the problem isn't only what the public doesn't know — it's what public officials don't. When Daily Press reporter Travis Fain started digging into the reasons why a never-built road — a public-private partnership for a toll road to replace U.S. 460 between South Hampton Roads and Petersburg — cost $290 million, he found the Hampton Roads representative on the state agency that approved the deal hadn't read the 773-page contract for the deal. In fact, months later, when Aubrey Layne was named secretary of Transportation, he didn't realize the contract could be read online, until Fain told him. When Layne started reading, it was to look for a way out of a complicated deal that had already cost the state millions, and that could leave Virginia owing still more money to its private partner for a road it never built. Fain was reading, too. His reading list included a list of contractors on the project and documents received from a standing Freedom of Information Act request for monthly bills for the project.
Daily Press
Altavista officials refused to explain the recent absence of the town’s police chief Monday as Virginia State Police enters the third week of its criminal investigation into the Altavista Police Department today. Altavista Police Chief Ken Walsh hasn’t responded to multiple interview requests from The News & Advance since March 3, when a town news release announced two police department employees were put on administrative leave because of the investigation. “I doubt you will reach him on his work number because that phone was taken away … It was taken away a few weeks ago,” Town Councilman Tracy Emerson said Monday. He referred all other questions to Town Manager Waverly Coggsdale. Coggsdale confirmed in an email Monday two employees remain on leave with pay, but wouldn’t name them or explain why Walsh’s phone was taken because they’re “personnel” issues, which can be exempt from Virginia’s public records laws. Citing the same exemption, he declined to say who is managing the day-to-day operations of the police department.
News & Advance
It will probably be a tough battle for those who want to hold the 700-odd local authorities, boards and commissions in Virginia accountable, as there’s been little willpower to do so. The General Assembly has done nothing in 15 years to correct the errors found by a 1999 audit, revealing local governments have created hundreds of so-called supervisory entities, which control hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars but aren’t necessarily accountable to taxpayers. The state doesn’t even have a full list of just what those organizations — everything from jail authorities to library boards — are, let alone have any audits on file for them. But requiring some sort of reporting from the authorities, boards and commissions that don’t yet have clear requirements won’t be easy. “Local governments are not going to be happy about this,” said John Watkins, a Republican from Petersburg who chairs the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission.
Watchdog.org Virginia Bureau
This month, the Town of Windsor is getting its own newspaper — and it’s free. Windsor Weekly, which is to debut on Saturday, March 28, will feature stories and photos on town and county issues, schools, civil and social clubs, businesses, sports and any other interests that concern the people. A cooperative effort of The Tidewater News and The Suffolk News-Herald, it’s a product that has been in the making for the past few years.
Tidewater News
National Stories
The Black Hole recognition, for damaging access to public information in Oklahoma, went to Judge Howard Haralson for turning his courtroom into a black hole during an important divorce case, that of Oklahoma oil magnate Harold Hamm.
FOI Oklahoma
The White House is removing a federal regulation that subjects its Office of Administration to the Freedom of Information Act, making official a policy under Presidents Bush and Obama to reject requests for records to that office. The White House said the cleanup of FOIA regulations is consistent with court rulings that hold that the office is not subject to the transparency law. The office handles, among other things, White House record-keeping duties like the archiving of e-mails. But the timing of the move raised eyebrows among transparency advocates, coming on National Freedom of Information Day and during a national debate over the preservation of Obama administration records. It's also Sunshine Week, an effort by news organizations and watchdog groups to highlight issues of government transparency.
USA Today
Three federal agencies didn't bother to submit mandatory reports to the Department of Justice on their compliance with the federal Freedom of Information Act in 2014. The Departments of Education, Homeland Security and Treasury each earned "F" grades on Cause of Action's FOIA Report Card as a result of their failure to comply with the law's reporting requirement. The reports were due Dec. 15, 2014, and have been required on an annual basis since 2008. Cause of Action is a Washington-based nonprofit that focuses on litigation on behalf of greater transparency and accountability in government. The group's FOIA report card was made public Monday as part of Sunshine Week, an annual series of events and projects hosted by news groups and nonprofit organizations dedicated to promoting open government.
Washington Examiner
Lobbyists say you can’t expect a legislator to change a vote based on a nice meal or even a good seat at a concert or a ball game. That’s probably true most of the time. But lobbyists are salespeople hired to persuade decision-makers in the Legislature and in the agencies of the executive branch. They are not necessarily interested in feeding and watering those officials, but in having enough time together to make a case for whatever notion they’re pushing. The dinners, drinks and entertainment make the face time a little more pleasant, but it is the face time — not the steaks and bourbon — that make the spending worthwhile from the lobbyists’ standpoint. “You’re building a relationship that 26 million people don’t have,” says Jim Clancy, an attorney and a member of the Texas Ethics Commission. Which is why it is relatively meaningless to have a lobby reporting law that does not attach the name of the beneficiaries to the benefits.
Governing
Mackinac Center Gets FOIA Charges Reduced from $1,550 to $50.
Marckinac Center
Editorials/Columns
The smartphones most Americans carry in their pockets dwarf the computing power of the Apollo spacecraft that ferried astronauts to the moon and back. Email addresses were generally rare until the 1990s; innovation now takes place at a breathtaking pace. Technology should be a powerful tool for strengthening the relationship between citizens and their government. It can bolster access to information, allow more opportunities for public participation and promote a greater understanding of civic affairs. Sunshine Week (March 15-21) affords us an opportunity to examine issues involving government transparency and public access. Technology weighs heavily on those matters now, and is certain to play an influential role in the future. Yet, in order to maximize its potential, Virginia's open government laws must keep pace with innovation, and more elected officials should capitalize on the chance to use technology as an avenue for educating and engaging the public.
Daily Press
“It’s not the Economic Development Authority’s money,” says state Sen. John Watkins, adding that the Freedom of Information Act is “pretty clear. ... If you’re going to spend tax dollars, there’s got to be a public record of where and how those tax dollars are spent.” But that’s not the case with the deal between Stone Brewing and Richmond to which Watkins was referring, and which used millions of public dollars to bring the brewery to River City. The city worked out the details through its Economic Development Authority, and the EDA has come to terms with Hourigan Construction, which is now deeply into the project. Nevertheless, the public can’t see any of the details because of a wrinkle in state law. The contracts for the project have not received every last signature, tittle and jot. Until they do, they’re technically subject to revision, which means they are technically still in negotiation, which means they’re exempt from public scrutiny.
Times-Dispatch
All this week, news organizations across the nation are observing Sunshine Week to remind citizens of the importance of open government and the laws that empower the individual and the media to keep an eye on the doings and goings-on of their government. Sunshine Week, a project of the American Society of News Editors (ASNE), coincides with the birthday of President James Madison and National Freedom of Information Day on March 16. Madison, one of the primary authors of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, was — it’s fair to say — obsessed over the possibility that government could become too big and too unwieldy for citizens to control. In drafting the Constitution, he put in place a myriad of checks and balances between and within the three branches that endure to this day. Over the years, though, it has occasionally been a struggle for the average citizen and the news media, acting on behalf of the public, to get government to live up the levels of openness and transparency Madison and the Founders envisioned. One such incident involved a Nelson County couple — Lee and Paulette Albright — who, literally and figuratively, smelled something fishy in the rationale a state agency was giving for closing the state fish hatchery in Montebello.
News & Advance
Don’t take it personally? That’s usually good advice, but today we urge the opposite reaction to all government bodies operating in the shadows, purposely avoiding public scrutiny and genuine transparency. In other words, take closed government personally. Please! Take it personally when a reporter is kicked out of a city council meeting so members can hold an illegal or unnecessary executive session. Take it personally when public access to government records is refused, limited or attached to excessive fees.
Brian J. Hunhoff, Times-Dispatch
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