Transparency News, 4/21/2022

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April 21, 2022

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state & local news stories

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The Virginia Department of Education handed over a file on Tuesday related to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s first executive orders. State officials had previously blocked the file from public release. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed a lawsuit earlier this month on behalf of a VPM News reporter who sought a record that VDOE claimed was exempt from public release. In their petition, the committee’s lawyers argued the department didn’t have legal grounds to withhold the file. The withheld email attachment, called “EA_Instructions,” lays out guidance from the Youngkin administration to top state officials on how to enforce 11 executive orders signed on his first day in office, Jan. 15. Despite its label as the “confidential working papers of the governor,” the unredacted file doesn’t include substantially new information. It assigns specific tasks laid out in the executive orders to each state agency. For example, the document instructs the Superintendent of Public Instruction to “review all policies within the Department of Education to identify those that promote inherently divisive concepts” – language that appears verbatim in the original executive order.
VPM

In late 2019, Maryland Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) and then-Virginia Gov. Ralph S. Northam (D) announced a $1 billion agreement to rebuild the American Legion Bridge. Hogan said the “historic, once-in-a-generation” agreement would speed construction of a new, wider bridge that would help reduce congestion on Interstate 495. The bridge, which carries Beltway traffic between Montgomery County, Md. and Fairfax County, Va., routinely ranks among the worst bottlenecks in the nation. Nearly 30 months after the governors’ photo-op, the details of the agreement remain a mystery. Last month, State Highway Administration officials rejected a public records request submitted by Maryland Matters. In a letter, an SHA official referred to the agreement in the past tense. The Virginia Department of Transportation also denied a reporter’s request to see the Capital Beltway Accord. In an email, the agency said it “has no records responsive to your request because the document does not exist as the details are still under negotiation between the two states.”
Maryland Matters

A former state investigator accused of leaking confidential information about the Virginia Parole Board acknowledged she was “ultimately responsible” for the material making its way to the news media last year, according to an employment-dispute ruling that upheld the investigator’s firing despite her efforts to seek whistleblower protection. The pending lawsuit over the Parole Board leaks touches on broad questions of what Virginia’s whistleblower law should and shouldn’t protect, as well as the free speech rights of public employees tasked with investigating government wrongdoing. Personnel disputes within state government are usually kept confidential, but the grievance records filed in court last week offer a rare glimpse into how the state responded when an employee broke confidentiality rules and fueled news coverage that higher-ranking officials, including Northam Chief of Staff Clark Mercer and Secretary of Public Safety Brian Moran, were trying to tamp down. Moschetti’s report on the Martin case was almost entirely redacted before being released to the media and the General Assembly. Republican leaders demanded an unredacted version, which they then released to the news media. The inspector general’s office would not release Moschetti’s subsequent reports on the Parole Board to the General Assembly or the media, and they only became public through the unauthorized disclosures.
Virginia Mercury

A Loudoun County Circuit Court judge denied on Wednesday afternoon a political action group’s request to release the “independent review” of the school division’s handling of a pair of sexual assaults in two high schools. LCPS, which commissioned the review, has previously said the report would not be made public. Ian Prior, executive director and president of Fight for Schools, filed the petition in the March for an injunction, which did not seek the release of exempt materials or information related to the victims, but rather non-exempt materials and information related to the review, according to court records. In November, LCPS hired Fairfax-based firm Blankingship & Keith, P.C. to conduct an independent review of its handling of two sexual assaults reported at Stone Bridge and Broad Run high schools in Ashburn last year. The report was completed in January, however, it was being withheld from disclosure under two Virginia Code statutes protecting scholastic information and personnel information. On Wednesday, Circuit Court Judge James Plowman said he is sensitive to the public’s interest in the case, “but this is not the vehicle” to getting those answers, he said.
Loudoun Times-Mirror

A citizen’s request for information from Smyth County and the bill that accompanied the response has sparked articles and editorials across the commonwealth. From Bristol to Charlottesville to Richmond, the $884.09 bill has attracted media attention and commentary. The request was not a simple one. Dated Feb. 16, attorney W. Watts Burks IV made the records request on behalf of Veda Odle, who opposed her neighbor’s application for a special use permit to develop a private airstrip on his land. Using the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which is also known as the Sunshine Law, Burks sought all material used by the planning commission and board of supervisors to make decisions that led to granting Odle’s neighbor, Robert de Camara, the permit.
Smyth County News & Messenger

Two seemingly routine reappointments turned sideways at Tuesday's Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors meeting, resulting in one resident being escorted out by deputies. Westover District Supervisor Ron Scearce had asked that two consent agenda items — those typically approved as a group at the start of the meeting — be pulled and placed under new business. The two items called for Vice Chairman Jessie Barksdale and Chairman Vic Ingram to switch appointments, putting Barksdale on the Community Policy and Management Team and Ingram on the Department of Social Services Board. Scearce said that Ingram's appointment to the DSS Board would be a "conflict of interest." Ingram insisted he was a better fit for the appointment. If the other DSS Board members don't like it, they can resign, said Ingram. At that point, Westover resident Jim Scearce made some comments out of order and Ingram asked that he be removed from the meeting. Two deputies escorted Jim Scearce out of the meeting room.
Star-Tribune