Transparency News, 4/1/20
Wednesday
April 1, 2020
April 1, 2020
state & local news stories
The Times-Mirror has had numerous inquiries as to why the general locations of local coronavirus cases aren't being released. Readers have reasoned that information could be important in determining whether there are “hot spots” for the virus across Loudoun. The Times-Mirror too has inquired about that information, but county officials have thus far not released updates on case counts or locations beyond the first few cases and the first death. Here's the back and forth between the Times-Mirror and county representatives on the matter.
Loudoun Times-Mirror
The lengthy public gatherings that are a hallmark of Arlington’s thorough development review process are suddenly off limits due to coronavirus concerns — and that could spell trouble as the county continues to manage a surge in Amazon- related interest. County officials are grappling with how, exactly, they can keep large projects advancing when they’ve had to postpone just about every public meeting for all of Arlington’s boards and commissions governing development. That’s prompting anxiety among developers, who face their own deadlines to secure entitlements to keep big deals together. County Board member Christian Dorsey noted the county has already experimented with virtual Site Plan Review Committee meetings, in fact, and could simply look to “scale it up so it’s fully public.” The real challenge is how to manage full meetings of the County Board, where members need to cast up or down votes on big development applications. A spokeswoman for Attorney General Mark Herring said his office is largely deferring to local government attorneys to make judgements on the issue, as “they’re really on the front lines on this.”
Washington Business Journal -- (on VCOG's Google Drive)
Frederick County strongly encourages people to watch rather than attend tonight’s Board of Supervisors’ budget work session. The session, which starts at 6 p.m. in the County Administration Building at 107 N. Kent St., will not include a time for citizen comments. As a result, people are encouraged to watch a broadcast of the work session on Comcast channel 16 or a livestream on the county website website at www.fcva.us/bosmeetings. Although the meeting is open to the public, restrictions will be in place to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Members of the public who attend the work session will be taken to a separate room from the supervisors to watch the meeting on a screen. Rooms will be limited to 10 people, based on guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Virginia. Attendees are asked to avoid congregating in building hallways/vestibules and immediately outside the building.
The Winchester Star
Danville City Council will meet at 7 p.m. April 7, but members of the public are not allowed to physically attend due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The council chambers will be re-arranged to meet social distancing guidelines. Some council members may participate remotely, according to a news release from the city. River City TV, the city's government access channel, will air the business and work sessions. It can be watched live on cable at Comcast channel 10 and Gamewood channel 122 or streaming on the River City TV Facebook page.
Register & Bee
The Culpeper County Board of Supervisors met via conference Tuesday morning to formerly declare a state of emergency and get an update on the roles various county departments have taken during the coronavirus pandemic. Part of the response has required the Board of Supervisors and School Board to either cancel some meetings or move others online. Supervisors will meet online April 7 to get a budget update and decide the tax rate for fiscal 2021.
Culpeper Times
In order to remain transparent under state directives that limit personal interaction, Pulaski Town Council is live streaming it’s Tuesday work session on the town’s Facebook page. Tuesday’s 5 p.m. work session originally was intended to be a budget work session. However, since council’s March work session was cancelled and there are a few matters that need to be addressed, Tuesday’s meeting will be a normal work session. Council chambers will be set up to allow social distancing and attendance is limited to 10 people.
Southwest Times
Spirits were high as the Board of Supervisors and senior staff convened in a fifth-floor conference room at the county administration building for a March 11 work session on Chesterfield County’s fiscal year 2021 budget. The local revenue forecast was aggressive, anchored by a roaring economy, record-low unemployment and yet another year of significant increases in residential property assessments. The very next day, all hell broke loose. While the Board of Supervisors was scheduled to hold public hearings on the budget, property tax rates and utility rates last Wednesday, all but a handful of the more than 200 seats in the county’s Public Meeting Room sat empty. The county had urged citizens to submit feedback on the budget via an online form and watch the meeting on its public-access television channel – the “new normal” for a local government that has spent the past three weeks trying to keep up with a flood of seemingly ever-changing information on the coronavirus.
Chesterfield Observer
(The County also released this statement from its board, an example of proactive transparency: https://www.chesterfieldobserver.com/articles/adapting-by-the-day-a-message-from-the-chesterfield-county-board-of-supervisors/)
Loudoun Times-Mirror
The lengthy public gatherings that are a hallmark of Arlington’s thorough development review process are suddenly off limits due to coronavirus concerns — and that could spell trouble as the county continues to manage a surge in Amazon- related interest. County officials are grappling with how, exactly, they can keep large projects advancing when they’ve had to postpone just about every public meeting for all of Arlington’s boards and commissions governing development. That’s prompting anxiety among developers, who face their own deadlines to secure entitlements to keep big deals together. County Board member Christian Dorsey noted the county has already experimented with virtual Site Plan Review Committee meetings, in fact, and could simply look to “scale it up so it’s fully public.” The real challenge is how to manage full meetings of the County Board, where members need to cast up or down votes on big development applications. A spokeswoman for Attorney General Mark Herring said his office is largely deferring to local government attorneys to make judgements on the issue, as “they’re really on the front lines on this.”
Washington Business Journal -- (on VCOG's Google Drive)
Frederick County strongly encourages people to watch rather than attend tonight’s Board of Supervisors’ budget work session. The session, which starts at 6 p.m. in the County Administration Building at 107 N. Kent St., will not include a time for citizen comments. As a result, people are encouraged to watch a broadcast of the work session on Comcast channel 16 or a livestream on the county website website at www.fcva.us/bosmeetings. Although the meeting is open to the public, restrictions will be in place to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Members of the public who attend the work session will be taken to a separate room from the supervisors to watch the meeting on a screen. Rooms will be limited to 10 people, based on guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Virginia. Attendees are asked to avoid congregating in building hallways/vestibules and immediately outside the building.
The Winchester Star
Danville City Council will meet at 7 p.m. April 7, but members of the public are not allowed to physically attend due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The council chambers will be re-arranged to meet social distancing guidelines. Some council members may participate remotely, according to a news release from the city. River City TV, the city's government access channel, will air the business and work sessions. It can be watched live on cable at Comcast channel 10 and Gamewood channel 122 or streaming on the River City TV Facebook page.
Register & Bee
The Culpeper County Board of Supervisors met via conference Tuesday morning to formerly declare a state of emergency and get an update on the roles various county departments have taken during the coronavirus pandemic. Part of the response has required the Board of Supervisors and School Board to either cancel some meetings or move others online. Supervisors will meet online April 7 to get a budget update and decide the tax rate for fiscal 2021.
Culpeper Times
In order to remain transparent under state directives that limit personal interaction, Pulaski Town Council is live streaming it’s Tuesday work session on the town’s Facebook page. Tuesday’s 5 p.m. work session originally was intended to be a budget work session. However, since council’s March work session was cancelled and there are a few matters that need to be addressed, Tuesday’s meeting will be a normal work session. Council chambers will be set up to allow social distancing and attendance is limited to 10 people.
Southwest Times
Spirits were high as the Board of Supervisors and senior staff convened in a fifth-floor conference room at the county administration building for a March 11 work session on Chesterfield County’s fiscal year 2021 budget. The local revenue forecast was aggressive, anchored by a roaring economy, record-low unemployment and yet another year of significant increases in residential property assessments. The very next day, all hell broke loose. While the Board of Supervisors was scheduled to hold public hearings on the budget, property tax rates and utility rates last Wednesday, all but a handful of the more than 200 seats in the county’s Public Meeting Room sat empty. The county had urged citizens to submit feedback on the budget via an online form and watch the meeting on its public-access television channel – the “new normal” for a local government that has spent the past three weeks trying to keep up with a flood of seemingly ever-changing information on the coronavirus.
Chesterfield Observer
(The County also released this statement from its board, an example of proactive transparency: https://www.chesterfieldobserver.com/articles/adapting-by-the-day-a-message-from-the-chesterfield-county-board-of-supervisors/)
stories of national interest
The Defense Department has ordered commanders at all of its installations worldwide to stop announcing publicly new coronavirus cases among their personnel, as the Pentagon said Monday that more than 1,000 U.S. military-linked people had been sickened by the virus. The order issued by Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Friday is meant to protect operational security at the Defense Department’s global installations, Jonathan Hoffman, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said in a statement Monday. He said Defense Department leaders worried adversaries could exploit such information, especially if the data showed the outbreak impacted U.S. nuclear forces or other critical units.
Stars & Stripes
The Electronic Privacy Information Center has obtained a DOJ report on predictive policing via a FOIA lawsuit. The document dates back to 2014 but it shows the DOJ had concerns about the negative side effects of predicting where crime may occur by using data that details where crime has happened. The report contains some limited data from trial runs of predictive policing efforts. One of these tests ran from 2009 to 2012 in Shreveport, Louisiana. Using historic property crime data, along with 911 calls and the number of residents on parole or probation, the analytic software attempted to predict where future crime might occur and where police presence might be increased to prevent crime.
Techdirt
Stars & Stripes
The Electronic Privacy Information Center has obtained a DOJ report on predictive policing via a FOIA lawsuit. The document dates back to 2014 but it shows the DOJ had concerns about the negative side effects of predicting where crime may occur by using data that details where crime has happened. The report contains some limited data from trial runs of predictive policing efforts. One of these tests ran from 2009 to 2012 in Shreveport, Louisiana. Using historic property crime data, along with 911 calls and the number of residents on parole or probation, the analytic software attempted to predict where future crime might occur and where police presence might be increased to prevent crime.
Techdirt
editorials & columns
Washington state, an early casualty in the war on the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), exposed the challenges government faces when it comes to communicating during a crisis. In Snohomish County, health officials knew the public would need information and answers to questions, so they turned to a nonprofit they had used once before to provide a 24-hour emergency hotline service. But public interest surged after the state’s first death from the coronavirus, overwhelming the four call center workers. Even with additional staff, call wait times exceeded 30 minutes. Washington is far from alone among governments that have struggled in one way or another with communications. In Massachusetts, the state’s 211 hotline was strained from the high call volume as the pandemic took hold there. Other states and localities have also seen their hotlines sputter from spikes in calls for information. Clearly, people are anxious and want answers to their many questions. With the country now leading the world in confirmed cases, America’s need for credible, correct and rapid access to information has never been more critical, say experts. It’s up to public officials, from governors and mayors to public health directors and public safety executives, to make that happen.
Tod Newcombe, Governing
Tod Newcombe, Governing
Wednesday
April 1, 2020
April 1, 2020
state & local news stories
The Times-Mirror has had numerous inquiries as to why the general locations of local coronavirus cases aren't being released. Readers have reasoned that information could be important in determining whether there are “hot spots” for the virus across Loudoun. The Times-Mirror too has inquired about that information, but county officials have thus far not released updates on case counts or locations beyond the first few cases and the first death. Here's the back and forth between the Times-Mirror and county representatives on the matter.
Loudoun Times-Mirror
The lengthy public gatherings that are a hallmark of Arlington’s thorough development review process are suddenly off limits due to coronavirus concerns — and that could spell trouble as the county continues to manage a surge in Amazon- related interest. County officials are grappling with how, exactly, they can keep large projects advancing when they’ve had to postpone just about every public meeting for all of Arlington’s boards and commissions governing development. That’s prompting anxiety among developers, who face their own deadlines to secure entitlements to keep big deals together. County Board member Christian Dorsey noted the county has already experimented with virtual Site Plan Review Committee meetings, in fact, and could simply look to “scale it up so it’s fully public.” The real challenge is how to manage full meetings of the County Board, where members need to cast up or down votes on big development applications. A spokeswoman for Attorney General Mark Herring said his office is largely deferring to local government attorneys to make judgements on the issue, as “they’re really on the front lines on this.”
Washington Business Journal -- (on VCOG's Google Drive)
Frederick County strongly encourages people to watch rather than attend tonight’s Board of Supervisors’ budget work session. The session, which starts at 6 p.m. in the County Administration Building at 107 N. Kent St., will not include a time for citizen comments. As a result, people are encouraged to watch a broadcast of the work session on Comcast channel 16 or a livestream on the county website website at www.fcva.us/bosmeetings. Although the meeting is open to the public, restrictions will be in place to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Members of the public who attend the work session will be taken to a separate room from the supervisors to watch the meeting on a screen. Rooms will be limited to 10 people, based on guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Virginia. Attendees are asked to avoid congregating in building hallways/vestibules and immediately outside the building.
The Winchester Star
Danville City Council will meet at 7 p.m. April 7, but members of the public are not allowed to physically attend due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The council chambers will be re-arranged to meet social distancing guidelines. Some council members may participate remotely, according to a news release from the city. River City TV, the city's government access channel, will air the business and work sessions. It can be watched live on cable at Comcast channel 10 and Gamewood channel 122 or streaming on the River City TV Facebook page.
Register & Bee
The Culpeper County Board of Supervisors met via conference Tuesday morning to formerly declare a state of emergency and get an update on the roles various county departments have taken during the coronavirus pandemic. Part of the response has required the Board of Supervisors and School Board to either cancel some meetings or move others online. Supervisors will meet online April 7 to get a budget update and decide the tax rate for fiscal 2021.
Culpeper Times
In order to remain transparent under state directives that limit personal interaction, Pulaski Town Council is live streaming it’s Tuesday work session on the town’s Facebook page. Tuesday’s 5 p.m. work session originally was intended to be a budget work session. However, since council’s March work session was cancelled and there are a few matters that need to be addressed, Tuesday’s meeting will be a normal work session. Council chambers will be set up to allow social distancing and attendance is limited to 10 people.
Southwest Times
Spirits were high as the Board of Supervisors and senior staff convened in a fifth-floor conference room at the county administration building for a March 11 work session on Chesterfield County’s fiscal year 2021 budget. The local revenue forecast was aggressive, anchored by a roaring economy, record-low unemployment and yet another year of significant increases in residential property assessments. The very next day, all hell broke loose. While the Board of Supervisors was scheduled to hold public hearings on the budget, property tax rates and utility rates last Wednesday, all but a handful of the more than 200 seats in the county’s Public Meeting Room sat empty. The county had urged citizens to submit feedback on the budget via an online form and watch the meeting on its public-access television channel – the “new normal” for a local government that has spent the past three weeks trying to keep up with a flood of seemingly ever-changing information on the coronavirus.
Chesterfield Observer
(The County also released this statement from its board, an example of proactive transparency: https://www.chesterfieldobserver.com/articles/adapting-by-the-day-a-message-from-the-chesterfield-county-board-of-supervisors/)
Loudoun Times-Mirror
The lengthy public gatherings that are a hallmark of Arlington’s thorough development review process are suddenly off limits due to coronavirus concerns — and that could spell trouble as the county continues to manage a surge in Amazon- related interest. County officials are grappling with how, exactly, they can keep large projects advancing when they’ve had to postpone just about every public meeting for all of Arlington’s boards and commissions governing development. That’s prompting anxiety among developers, who face their own deadlines to secure entitlements to keep big deals together. County Board member Christian Dorsey noted the county has already experimented with virtual Site Plan Review Committee meetings, in fact, and could simply look to “scale it up so it’s fully public.” The real challenge is how to manage full meetings of the County Board, where members need to cast up or down votes on big development applications. A spokeswoman for Attorney General Mark Herring said his office is largely deferring to local government attorneys to make judgements on the issue, as “they’re really on the front lines on this.”
Washington Business Journal -- (on VCOG's Google Drive)
Frederick County strongly encourages people to watch rather than attend tonight’s Board of Supervisors’ budget work session. The session, which starts at 6 p.m. in the County Administration Building at 107 N. Kent St., will not include a time for citizen comments. As a result, people are encouraged to watch a broadcast of the work session on Comcast channel 16 or a livestream on the county website website at www.fcva.us/bosmeetings. Although the meeting is open to the public, restrictions will be in place to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Members of the public who attend the work session will be taken to a separate room from the supervisors to watch the meeting on a screen. Rooms will be limited to 10 people, based on guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Virginia. Attendees are asked to avoid congregating in building hallways/vestibules and immediately outside the building.
The Winchester Star
Danville City Council will meet at 7 p.m. April 7, but members of the public are not allowed to physically attend due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The council chambers will be re-arranged to meet social distancing guidelines. Some council members may participate remotely, according to a news release from the city. River City TV, the city's government access channel, will air the business and work sessions. It can be watched live on cable at Comcast channel 10 and Gamewood channel 122 or streaming on the River City TV Facebook page.
Register & Bee
The Culpeper County Board of Supervisors met via conference Tuesday morning to formerly declare a state of emergency and get an update on the roles various county departments have taken during the coronavirus pandemic. Part of the response has required the Board of Supervisors and School Board to either cancel some meetings or move others online. Supervisors will meet online April 7 to get a budget update and decide the tax rate for fiscal 2021.
Culpeper Times
In order to remain transparent under state directives that limit personal interaction, Pulaski Town Council is live streaming it’s Tuesday work session on the town’s Facebook page. Tuesday’s 5 p.m. work session originally was intended to be a budget work session. However, since council’s March work session was cancelled and there are a few matters that need to be addressed, Tuesday’s meeting will be a normal work session. Council chambers will be set up to allow social distancing and attendance is limited to 10 people.
Southwest Times
Spirits were high as the Board of Supervisors and senior staff convened in a fifth-floor conference room at the county administration building for a March 11 work session on Chesterfield County’s fiscal year 2021 budget. The local revenue forecast was aggressive, anchored by a roaring economy, record-low unemployment and yet another year of significant increases in residential property assessments. The very next day, all hell broke loose. While the Board of Supervisors was scheduled to hold public hearings on the budget, property tax rates and utility rates last Wednesday, all but a handful of the more than 200 seats in the county’s Public Meeting Room sat empty. The county had urged citizens to submit feedback on the budget via an online form and watch the meeting on its public-access television channel – the “new normal” for a local government that has spent the past three weeks trying to keep up with a flood of seemingly ever-changing information on the coronavirus.
Chesterfield Observer
(The County also released this statement from its board, an example of proactive transparency: https://www.chesterfieldobserver.com/articles/adapting-by-the-day-a-message-from-the-chesterfield-county-board-of-supervisors/)
stories of national interest
The Defense Department has ordered commanders at all of its installations worldwide to stop announcing publicly new coronavirus cases among their personnel, as the Pentagon said Monday that more than 1,000 U.S. military-linked people had been sickened by the virus. The order issued by Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Friday is meant to protect operational security at the Defense Department’s global installations, Jonathan Hoffman, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said in a statement Monday. He said Defense Department leaders worried adversaries could exploit such information, especially if the data showed the outbreak impacted U.S. nuclear forces or other critical units.
Stars & Stripes
The Electronic Privacy Information Center has obtained a DOJ report on predictive policing via a FOIA lawsuit. The document dates back to 2014 but it shows the DOJ had concerns about the negative side effects of predicting where crime may occur by using data that details where crime has happened. The report contains some limited data from trial runs of predictive policing efforts. One of these tests ran from 2009 to 2012 in Shreveport, Louisiana. Using historic property crime data, along with 911 calls and the number of residents on parole or probation, the analytic software attempted to predict where future crime might occur and where police presence might be increased to prevent crime.
Techdirt
Stars & Stripes
The Electronic Privacy Information Center has obtained a DOJ report on predictive policing via a FOIA lawsuit. The document dates back to 2014 but it shows the DOJ had concerns about the negative side effects of predicting where crime may occur by using data that details where crime has happened. The report contains some limited data from trial runs of predictive policing efforts. One of these tests ran from 2009 to 2012 in Shreveport, Louisiana. Using historic property crime data, along with 911 calls and the number of residents on parole or probation, the analytic software attempted to predict where future crime might occur and where police presence might be increased to prevent crime.
Techdirt
editorials & columns
Washington state, an early casualty in the war on the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), exposed the challenges government faces when it comes to communicating during a crisis. In Snohomish County, health officials knew the public would need information and answers to questions, so they turned to a nonprofit they had used once before to provide a 24-hour emergency hotline service. But public interest surged after the state’s first death from the coronavirus, overwhelming the four call center workers. Even with additional staff, call wait times exceeded 30 minutes. Washington is far from alone among governments that have struggled in one way or another with communications. In Massachusetts, the state’s 211 hotline was strained from the high call volume as the pandemic took hold there. Other states and localities have also seen their hotlines sputter from spikes in calls for information. Clearly, people are anxious and want answers to their many questions. With the country now leading the world in confirmed cases, America’s need for credible, correct and rapid access to information has never been more critical, say experts. It’s up to public officials, from governors and mayors to public health directors and public safety executives, to make that happen.
Tod Newcombe, Governing
Tod Newcombe, Governing
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