Transparency News 3/3/17

Friday, March 3, 2017

State and Local Stories
 

The Peninsula Airport Commission’s use of taxpayer funds to pay off a $4.5 million debt of a failed airline has, two years on, sparked a major house-cleaning. Newport News City Manager Jim Bourey resigned as a commissioner Thursday, saying he felt his decisions on the body, which included voting to guarantee a loan to People Express Airlines, were justified. The commission ended its six-decade-old relation with the law firm of its attorney, Herbert V. Kelly Jr. It put Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport executive director Ken Spirito on paid administrative leave. And, for the first time, it said it regretted its dealings with People Express, which operated out of the airport for less than three months in 2014. “This was a very stressful time for the the airport but we want to show that we are trying to be diligent and effective and efficient,” commission chairman George Wallace said at the end of a more than two hour closed door meeting. “We’re going to be be bigger and better than we have been.”
Daily Press

Several Lynchburg-area General Assembly delegation members were not among the majority of legislators requesting new transparency technology in the legislature’s new building, which is not yet under construction. Three of them said this week, though, they have no problem in principle with installing audio, video and vote-recording equipment to ensure committee and subcommittee rooms — and the votes made in them — are as visible as votes on the chamber floors. 
News & Advance

Of the 571 House bills that failed during the session, more than two-thirds were anonymously killed on voice votes in subcommittees that went unrecorded, according to data from the Legislative Information System, the General Assembly’s official recordkeeping arm. Proponents of open government say the lack of transparency muddies the waters of Virginia’s democracy. “For a final disposition on a vote, it is crucial they be recorded,” said Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government. People elect their representatives based on how politicians stand on issues vital to voters’ interests, Rhyne said. If they can’t see how public officials have voted on an issue, citizens can’t accurately choose their representatives, she added.
Northern Virginia Daily

National Stories
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California’s state and local government officials can no longer shield from scrutiny their communications about public business by using private phones and accounts, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday, handing a major victory to media and transparency advocates. The state’s high court issued a unanimous decision, saying the public has the right to view messages about government business conducted in that fashion. “A city employee’s communications related to the conduct of public business do not cease to be public records just because they were sent or received using a personal account,” Justice Carol Corrigan wrote in the ruling. “Sound public policy supports this result.”
Sacramento Bee

Vice President Mike Pence used a private email account to conduct public business as Indiana’s governor, according to public records obtained by the Indianapolis Star. The newspaper reported Thursday that emails provided through a public records request show that Pence communicated with advisers through his personal AOL account on homeland security matters and security at the governor’s residence during his four years as governor. The governor also faced email security issues. Pence’s AOL account was subjected to a phishing scheme last spring, before he was chosen by Donald Trump to join the GOP presidential ticket. Pence’s contacts were sent an email falsely claiming that the governor and his wife were stranded in the Philippines and needed money.
McClatchy

A Missouri judge ruled the state Corrections Department intentionally delayed fulfilling a Sunshine request over the source of execution drugs to avoid returning them and facing negative publicity. “The Missouri Department of Corrections violated the public’s trust, in both its plan to use questionably obtained drugs and by purposefully violating the Sunshine Law to cover up its scheme,” American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri Executive Director Jeffrey Mittman said in a Monday statement touting the ruling. Attorney General Josh Hawley’s Deputy Chief of Staff Loree Anne Paradise said the case still is considered pending and declined to comment.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch