|
|
0 4 . 1 7 . 2 6
All Access
3 items
Our annual conference is on April 23rd in Norfolk.
Click the image for details and registration.
Registration closes today!*
*We also have a head-count maximum for the space. Registration will close earlier if we reach that number.
|
|
|
|
Local
Williamsburg has paid former City Manager Andrew O. Trivette $96,767.06 through the first week of April, though his resignation was accepted Feb. 25. The payouts don’t seem to match any of the provisions in his employment contract spelling out what payments the city would make if Trivette were fired, resigned or retired. City spokesperson Nicole Trifone confirmed our dates and figures but would not say if Trivette was still being paid, noting, “we are precluded from saying anything else regarding this matter.” In response to our Freedom of Information Act request, the city provided Williamsburg Watch with pay stubs for Trivette from March 6 through April 3 outlining his payments. The direct deposit statements, attached below, were redacted to remove information about his pay deductions and bank information but show:
|
|
|
|
Editorial
Shenanigans like the Smithfield Town Council’s recent reversal of a much-needed closed-session reform will be a violation of state law going forward, thanks to a bipartisan bill passed unanimously by the Virginia General Assembly and signed by the governor last week. Innocuously, Senate Bill 699 amends the Virginia Freedom of Information Act to require public bodies to post their proposed meeting agendas on their official websites, if they have one, before the meeting takes place. We were surprised to learn that wasn’t already mandatory. To their credit, this has long been standard practice of the boards we cover in Isle of Wight and Surry. But more important, the bill amends FOIA to prevent public bodies from taking final action on items that are added to an agenda after a meeting has already started, such as Smithfield Councilman Steve Bowman’s motion — conveniently made just minutes before the council retreated to secrecy to finalize its controversial plan to buy the former Pierceville property for $6.5 million — to end the council’s new practice of taking minutes and making audio recording of closed sessions.
NOTE: This bill originated with VCOG last year. The 2025 General Assembly sent the bill to the FOIA Council for study. The 2026 bill is the version that came out of the study. It isn’t as strong as VCOG originally wanted, but it reflects compromises needed to address concerns of local public bodies and state agencies.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The N.C. General Assembly will reconvene for short session on April 21. Barring being physically present at the sessions, it is impossible to watch the Senate’s proceedings. The N.C. House provides livestreamed audio, an audio archive and a video archive of its proceedings on its YouTube channel. The Senate offers live audio on the General Assembly’s website. Unlike the House and all neighboring state legislatures, there are no comprehensive, openly accessible Senate audio archives and no video recordings. Requests for audio from the current biennium can be made to the Senate principal clerk’s office, and the clerk will email the audio or mail it on a CD. The N.C. House and all of North Carolina’s neighboring states have live video and publicly accessible recordings. The House has had live video since April 2020 and has had archived footage on its YouTube channel since April 2025. “I don’t know why there is resistance but when one [legislative] body is doing it — it’s one thing if an entire state was not doing it — but when one body is doing it and the other is not doing it that’s perplexing to me,” Megan Rhyne, the administrator of the National Freedom of Information Coalition and executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, said.
The Daily Tar Heel
“Democracies die behind closed doors.” ~ U.S. District Judge Damon Keith, 2002
Follow us on: X / Facebook / Instagram / Threads / Bluesky
|
|
|
|
