Transparency News 3/17/16

State and Local Stories

Virginia State Police have received grand jury approval to investigate Mayor Dwight C. Jones in the ongoing probe into the connection between Jones’ church and city government, Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael N. Herring said Wednesday. The FBI is also participating in the investigation, which until recently has been characterized as a joint effort between the state police, Herring’s office and the city auditor’s office, according to sources with knowledge of the investigation.
Richmond Times-Dispatch


National Stories
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Monongalia County Circuit Judge Phillip Gaujot ruled against the West Virginia University Board of Governors on Tuesday, March 15, in a Freedom of Information Act suit filed in February by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The Teamsters were seeking unredacted email exchanges regarding a WVU Bureau of Business and Economic Research (BBER) study regarding the Legislature’s right-to-work bill: SB 1, the West Virginia Workplace Freedom Act. The study was requested by Senate President Bill Cole, R-Mercer, and House Speaker Tim Armstead, R-Kanawha, and authored by John Deskins, director of WVU’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research (BBER).
The DPost

It’s Sunshine Week, which was created to raise awareness and appreciation for our access to public information and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). However, there is one segment of our population that is not allowed to use FOIA: prisoners. Daniel Manville joined Stateside to explore this issue. Manville is an associate clinical professor at the Michigan State University law school, where he directs the Civil Rights Clinic. He has plenty of first-hand experience with this issue, as a former inmate and jailhouse lawyer himself.
Michigan Radio

Editorials/Columns

A “presumption of openness” should guide release of government records, says a congressional bill. To which we say: Yes! Government records are public records. The public owns them, for a number of logical reasons. The public has paid for their creation and their storage, through tax dollars. The public has paid the salaries of those who generate and maintain them, through tax dollars. And the public has created, authorized and empowered government as a whole to act in its best interests — not as an overlord, but as a servant. Government officials too often forget that they derive their legitimacy from the people. As a result of that ignorance, or arrogance, they tend to view public documents as part of their own domains — even their own fiefdoms. From time to time, they have to be set straight.
Daily Progress

This week, the United States Senate unanimously approved the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 — just in time for its 50th anniversary later this year. This FOIA legislation takes a number of important steps to reduce the expense and time required to access key information. It writes into law the existing presumption of openness rule (agencies can only withhold information if the disclosure would cause specific harm), aims to make requests more efficient by modernizing technology tools and limits the ability of agencies to keep internal deliberations that are more than 25 years old confidential, among other improvements. This legislation matters because access to government records often results in real change. The Flint water crisis was first uncovered when researchers at Virginia Tech University requested and researched public information. Our national conversation around veterans’ timely receipt of benefits was likewise sparked by a close study of government documents obtained through the FOIA process. There remains much to be done to instill confidence in citizens and ensure those in power are being held responsible for their actions. Amending this act and streamlining the processes by which the public can access government information is an important start.
David Chavern, Richmond Times-Dispatch