Transparency News, 4/22/20

 

Ordinarily down the hall from each other in the state Capitol, the Virginia House of Delegates and Senate will reconvene Wednesday miles apart as the legislature meets to finish business it started earlier this year in an entirely different climate. House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, D-Fairfax, said she hopes lawmakers will gather for a brief session, vote to allow remote voting, and head back home to finish the pending legislative work on Thursday. “I hope lawmakers will do the right thing and support remote voting,” Filler-Corn said in an interview. “It’s important for [the reconvened session] so that we don’t need to be together longer than necessary. I’ve made health and safety the top priority from the beginning.” Filler-Corn’s plan has come under criticism from some House Republicans, who are skeptical about a never-before-seen remote setup. At the same time, Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw, D-Fairfax, said he hopes the work can be accomplished in one day to minimize physical contact among lawmakers. “We’re ready to get it all done tomorrow, if the House is,” Saslaw said, adding that uncertainty about the vote in the House is leaving senators in the dark about whether they’ll need to convene again Thursday or Friday, or both.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

When state lawmakers reconvene in Richmond on Wednesday, they won’t be at their assigned desks under the dome of the Capitol, literally close enough to rub elbows with their seatmates. Instead, they’ll be casting votes on amendments proposed by Gov. Ralph Northam while sitting at least six feet apart, with one chamber spread out on the capitol’s grassy lawn, and the other three miles away at the Virginia Science Museum. The reconvene session typically lasts one day, but can last up to three days per the state constitution or up to 10 days with approval by the majority of lawmakers. House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn said she would try to change the rules when delegates meet Wednesday and allow remote voting to minimize contact between legislators. If that is approved, her chamber would take up the amendments remotely on Thursday.
The Virginian-Pilot

Mount Jackson’s Town Council voted unanimously on Monday to ratify an emergency ordinance to effectuate the continuity of government of the Town of Mount Jackson. The ordinance allows the town to continue to have virtual meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Town Council had a public hearing before the special Town Council meeting during which  the public was asked to send in comments for five minutes. Mount Jackson Town Manager Neil Showalter said they did not receive any comments before the meeting and they received none during the public hearing. Monday’s meeting was done with some members at the town hall, spaced over 6 feet apart and others doing it virtually through Zoom. The meeting was broadcast live for the public on YouTube at https://tinyurl.com/y9nnh34e.
The Northern Virginia Daily

The Henrico Citizen, an 18-year-old community newspaper covering Richmond’s northern neighbor, has halted its print edition, perhaps for good. In an online letter on March 30, Citizen publisher and editor Tom Lappas announced that with many of the free newspaper’s pickup locations closed and its advertisers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the twice-monthly tabloid would stop publishing in April and post its content solely online instead. Lappas, who founded the Citizen when he was 24, says he believes the shift to digital-only will allow the Citizen to increase its news coverage. In recent years, Lappas says the Citizen has run most of its stories online first and published them in print afterwards. Betsy Edwards, executive director of the Virginia Press Association, says that while there have been furloughs and a few publications have reduced how often they publish, none of the association’s roughly 175 member newspapers has said that it is closing permanently.
Style Weekly

On April 9, Isle of Wight County’s School Board voted to indefinitely suspend its policy of allowing in-person public comments at school board meetings in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We still have to hold our school board meetings because we’re an essential government operation and we have to have at least three members physically present at every school board meeting,” said Superintendent Dr. Jim Thornton in a video blog post earlier last week. Thornton then informed the School Board at the meeting that written remarks had been dropped off at the school around 5 p.m., an hour before the meeting began, but then recommended that the School Board not touch or open the package, per the division’s safety guidelines. “All of my staff and all of our building staff have been told that when they pick up the mail, when they receive packages, to not touch that package for 24 hours,” Thornton said. “This package did not follow this guideline.” Thornton added that the division had consulted its attorney regarding how to comply with state and federal Freedom of Information Acts yet keep staff and board members safe from potential exposure to the COVID-19 virus. “This was a recommended way to do public comments,” the superintendent said.
Tidewater News

At its first meeting since schools across the state closed for the pandemic, the Chesterfield County School Board approved a resolution to continue moving English as a Second Language learners to their home-school sites last Tuesday. The School Board also approved a resolution affirming the emergency continuity of government and authorizing electronic, remote meetings. At its March 25 meeting, the Chesterfield Board of Supervisors adopted an ordinance authorizing public entities in the county – including the two elected boards – to hold meetings remotely to practice social distancing during the public health crisis.
Chesterfield Observer
 

In the throes of an economic emergency in one of the most unequal cities in America, norms around basic transparency were deemed an acceptable trade-off. Half of Cleveland households have incomes below $30,000. Public schools are grossly underfunded, and public services strapped. Even so, elected officials openly collaborated with private industry to stifle public disclosure on a deal effectively transferring millions from public coffers to a company with profits of $1.5 billion in 2019, and whose CEO earns $14.8 million a year.  By late March, as a far greater emergency loomed over the region, with numerous positive cases of covid-19 being reported, Cleveland’s city council approved the deal. As a result, local journalists may never get the kind of document cache they would likely need to write an exhaustive, full-throated postmortem on the deal. The public will now likely be stuck with whatever narrative government and business leaders decide to spin. It’s the kind of behavior and outcome deserving of a foia lawsuit, in other words.  But none is forthcoming. No local media outlet can likely afford it. 
Columbia Journalism Review

 

 

The locations of COVID-19 cases is exactly the sort of information that should be released, promptly, to the public — not just for nursing home deaths but for others as well. Unfortunately, the sharing of this vital information has not been a priority, despite the fact that better knowledge about hot-spots and other cases could enable all of us to better protect ourselves. The federal government announced this week that it would begin tracking infections at nursing homes, with the current plan of sharing that information with the public. Reporting of infections and deaths, so that officials can get a clearer picture of the scope and path of the pandemic, is a necessary step in finding ways to thwart the virus. And the public has a right to see those figures in order to know how deeply their own communities are affected.
The Daily Progress