Transparency News 3/7/18 – Virginia Coalition for Open Government

		Wednesday March 7, 2018
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	state & local news stories
Check out VCOG’s lineup of free events to celebrate Sunshine Week March 11-17	The clock is ticking as House of Delegates and state Senate teams try to reconcile two radically different budgets — and one hint about whether they’ll deliver an agreement on time, or whether the game goes into overtime, comes Wednesday. That’s because both bodies have in recent years adopted rules that say budget agreements negotiated by their conferees — the senior legislators trying to strike a deal — have to be delivered to all legislators at least 48 hours before a vote. It was a move meant to assure more transparency, so all Virginians could get a chance to seewhat their legislators were voting on. The 48 hours are also intended to avoid some of the little surprises that come when legislators don’t get a chance to review a 500-page document full of numbers and legalese. If the House and Senate are to vote on the budget by the General Assembly’s scheduled adjournment on Saturday, the conferees would have to deliver a budget before midnight Wednesday. If they don’t, there’s a chance the General Assembly will pretend the last day of its Constitutionally limited 60-day session has more than 24 hours. Daily Press If there’s a pothole in the neighborhood, who are you going to text? Citibot. That’s the idea behind Williamsburg’s newest means of communicating with residents. Citibot, an interactive text messaging customer service software, provides a new means to arrange municipal services and locate information, said city information technology director Mark Barham. Citibot doesn’t replace existing means of communication residents use to communicate with the city. Rather it opens up communications for residents who may be more interested in dashing off a text message rather than composing an email or making a phone call, Barham said. “This is just another way for engagement,” Barham said. Virginia Gazette

national stories of interest
Maryland’s highest court voted unanimously Tuesday to restore the names of police officers to a statewide database of court records and for the fix to take place by the end of the week. The judges moved quickly to reverse a controversial decision that had blocked online public access to information previously available about arresting officers and the names of other law enforcement officials involved in criminal cases. The change was criticized by lawyers, civil rights advocates and journalists who rely on the database to identify patterns of misconduct and to hold police accountable. “We are accountable. We will address this error,” Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbera said before the court voted to put back the names of police officers. “Sometimes small mistakes can have big consequences and that’s what happened here.” The Washington Post The government’s personnel agency is hiding information about federal employees’ bonuses, overtime and cost of living adjustments. A powerful House committee wants to know why. Open the Books, a government watchdog group, has for the past 11 years sought the names, titles, agencies, salaries and bonus information for all federal employees. It has received much of the data it sought and then has posted the information publicly. Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman, as well as other committee members from both parties, sent a letter this week to OPM Acting Director Kathleen McGettigan demanding information on the withheld data. “Either OPM has been in error for the last 11 years or it is now,” the letter reads. “The American taxpayers have a right to see how their taxpayer dollars are being spent to the maximum extent practicable.” McClatchy A group of stakeholders wants the Labor Department to hold off on finalizing the association health plan rule until the agency releases data on fraudulent health plans. The group, which includes the AFL-CIO, the acting attorney general of Hawaii, the DC Health Benefit Exchange Authority, and Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms, made the demand in a March 1 comment letter on the proposed rule. The group also filed a Freedom of Information Act request demanding that the DOL release any statistics or information it has about the agency’s enforcement efforts against multiple employer welfare arrangements. Bloomberg BNA After the prosecution of a California doctor revealed the FBI’s ties to a Best Buy Geek Squad computer repair facility in Kentucky, new documents released to EFF show that the relationship goes back years. The records also confirm that the FBI has paid Geek Squad employees as informants. The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit last year to learn more about how the FBI uses Geek Squad employees to flag illegal material when people pay Best Buy to repair their computers. The documents released to EFF show that Best Buy officials have enjoyed a particularly close relationship with the agency for at least 10 years. For example, an FBI memo from September 2008 details how Best Buy hosted a meeting of the agency’s “Cyber Working Group” at the company’s Kentucky repair facility. EFF A progressive advocacy group filed a lawsuit in federal court last week against the Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD), calling for them to publicly disclose documents related to changing federal policy toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The organization filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the agencies failed to comply with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests that Right Wing Watch, a project of People for the American Way, sent in September. NBC News	March 16, 2018 Virginia Credit Union House Details

editorials & columns

“Town business is public business, and has no business operating under a cloak of secrecy.”

Strange goings-on with respect to three Abingdon town employees (or “appointees,” as they’re called), have been cloaked in secrecy, including filings of federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints by the three. While no one in Abingdon is talking about what’s been happening, one of those appointees— Cecile Rosenbaum, longtime assistant town manager and town clerk — had left her $80,000-a-year position as of last week. But nobody will say why, or reveal what her complaint was in the EEOC filing. What is known is that at least three or more of the Town Council members were in Richmond Feb. 19-21 to attend a closed session meeting on Feb. 20; although the council members and other city officials declined to talk about that meeting, it is speculated that they were in Richmond to speak with EEOC representatives at a regional EEOC office there. That Richmond meeting was held pursuant to a state law that allows public bodies to hold closed meetings when discussing sensitive information that might be related to personnel, the Herald Courier previously reported. The EEOC’s own rules prohibit it from publicly disclosing complaints that have been filed or any results of investigations of those complaints unless and until the cases are closed and some official action has been made. Abingdon residents need to know what is going on with their town government, why these officials have filed complaints, and why the assistant town manager/town clerk has left her positions, which she had held since 2005, if her departure had something to do with her complaints to the EEOC. Town business is public business, and has no business operating under a cloak of secrecy.
Bristol Herald Courier