Transparency News 4/14/17

Friday, April 14, 2017



State and Local Stories

Suffolk School Board members insist the superintendent deserved a raise of roughly $23,000. But they admit they should have handled the matter better and made it public at the time. “We made a mistake,” said Mike Debranski, the board chairman. “I think it was an honest mistake.” Last fall, the board increased Superintendent Deran Whitney’s salary by about 13 percent to $200,000 during a closed meeting. Board members never announced his new contract. Many employees learned about the increase when they saw the proposed budget in February. 
Virginian-Pilot

Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Plowman (R) did not violate the First Amendment by deleting the Facebook comment of Lansdowne resident Brian Davison, U.S. District Judge James C. Cacheris ruled in late March. Cacheris's decision brings to a close a contentious civil rights suit against Plowman, who deleted Davison's critical comment and later blocked the local resident from his official Facebook page. Over the course of the last year, as the lawsuit unfolded, Plowman eventually restored Davison’s ability to comment. Plowman and county officials have updated a Loudoun County social media policy that used to say public officials have the right to delete comments they deemed “clearly off topic.” The revised county policy states public officials are no longer allowed to delete “off-topic” comments.
Northern Virginia Daily



National Stories
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Mississippi does not have to publicly disclose details of how it carries out executions, the state's highest court ruled Thursday. In a 7-2 decision, the Mississippi Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit by the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center that argued the state's corrections department hadn't disclosed enough information in response to a 2014 public records request. A chancery judge had ordered more information disclosed, but the state appealed. Last year, while the appeal was still pending, legislators changed the law, joining states nationwide in shielding drug purchases and other execution methods from public disclosure.
McClatchy

Proponents of a bill intended to make Colorado public records easier to analyze fear the University of Colorado is manipulating the bill to make records more difficult to obtain. Senate Bill 40 concerns public access to government files, or the Colorado Open Records Act. The bill's original intent is to ensure digital records requested are provided in a searchable format. Proponents of a bill intended to make Colorado public records easier to analyze fear the University of Colorado is manipulating the bill to make records more difficult to obtain. Senate Bill 40 concerns public access to government files, or the Colorado Open Records Act. The bill's original intent is to ensure digital records requested are provided in a searchable format. The university system wants to distinguish between "data" and "records." CU employees don't believe all databases should be public unless they've been made into records by their staff, university system spokesman Ken McConnellogue said. This distinction does not exist within current CORA regulations.
Boulder Daily Camera

The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday to disclose all communications made by EPA officials using special encryption software to undermine President Trump's environmental agenda. The group filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in district court in Washington, seeking all "communications sent or received by EPA officials who may have used the cell phone encryption application 'Signal' to thwart government oversight and transparency," according to a statement. Using the app could prevent federal agencies from complying with Freedom of Information requests because it bypasses the use of government servers. The group said the agency has a history of using personal communications devices to conduct official business, which is undermining its ability to fulfill its obligations under federal disclosure laws.
Washington Examiner

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper has signed into law a bill that allows the public to know if an employer steals wages from his or her workers. Democratic Rep. Jessie Danielson's measure includes these wage violations under Colorado's Open Records Act. The law, signed Thursday, allows citizens to find out if they're doing business with, or considering a job with, an offender. Such cases, decided by state labor officials, were considered trade secrets under a century-old law.
U.S. News & World Report


Editorials/Columns


So far, Norfolk Treasurer Anthony Burfoot’s defense attorney has 32 letters from politicians, bureaucrats, preachers and friends saying that Burfoot’s a swell guy. I get it. Anthony Burfoot is a charming man. And many folks regard white-collar crime as more respectable than the street variety. It’s not. In fact, it can be argued that corrupt public officials, who betray the people who elected them and who undermine faith in our democratic institutions with their greedy acts, should be counted among the most loathsome of criminals. Yet that didn’t stop Norfolk City Attorney Bernard Pishko from firing off a letter on Burfoot’s behalf. On official stationery, no less.
Kerry Dougherty, Virginian-Pilot