Transparency News 4/23/14

At yesterday's meeting, the FOIA Council agreed to generally follow a work plan prepared by council staff as it begins its work to give FOIA an overhaul. The council named two subcommittees — one on records and one on meetings — and tasked each one with studying a certain set of FOIA provisions over the next 2.5 years.

The council also decided that it would direct action itself on whether to recommend a change to FOIA proposed by Del. Bob Brink on making it explicit that FOIA applies to the attorney general.

The next meetings of the full council will be July 8, September 16 and November 18, though the subcommittees will meet at various times between those dates.

The media gallery in the Richmond City Council chamber could be closed down and more police officers added to the room as part of the city’s response to a heated confrontation last week with an armed activist. On Tuesday, Councilwoman Reva M. Trammell used a meeting of the council’s Public Safety Committee to grill the City Hall security chief and launch a discussion about what changes should be made after last week’s incident involving activist Chris Dorsey. While there was no action taken Tuesday, Chief Administrative Officer Byron C. Marshall suggested that the council reconsider a year-old suggestion to close off the media gallery to non-city employees, which would solve the problem of unwanted visitors to the dais while avoiding the thorny topic of defining who’s a member of the media.
Times-Dispatch

Just under $58 million — that’s the total amount of “actual expenditures” from 2012-13 listed in Danville Public School’s current approved budget. But that’s not nearly all the money the school system spent that year. According to the most recent report from the Auditor of Public Accounts, Danville Public Schools spent a total of $69.9 million in fiscal year 2012-13 — roughly $12 million more than the total included in the proposed budget. The difference stems from the fact that only “general fund” money is included in each annual budget summary, effectively omitting several other sources of revenue. Danville School Board Chairman Ed Polhamus said he’s not sure why the school board doesn’t include grant money and cafeteria funds in the annual budget — only that it’s “always been done this way.” “I actually don’t have an answer, it’s just always been done that way, even before I came on the school board,” he explained. Compared with several surrounding school divisions, Danville Public Schools appears to be in the minority in omitting special grants and cafeteria funds from its proposed budget — especially when reporting total expenditures from past years.
Register & Bee

National Stories

When you deeply believe that you're a force for good, it's sometimes easy to forget that not everyone agrees with you. This is something that was experienced on Tuesday by the New York Police Department. For reasons that might range from boredom to naivete, the NYPD decided to do what most people do when they have little else better: it created a hashtag. This one was #myNYPD.
CNET News

Federal prosecutors are pushing back against U.S. District Magistrate Judge John Facciola, who says the government has repeatedly filed search warrant applications for electronic information that run afoul of the Fourth Amendment.
LegalTimes

The Supreme Court appeared skeptical Tuesday morning of both an Ohio political-speech law and assertions that an anti-abortion group can’t challenge it. The justices were considering whether the Susan B. Anthony List has legal standing to sue to have the law struck down since the group was never actually prosecuted under it. But the justices also addressed the question at the heart of the issue: whether the law itself has a chilling effect on free speech, as the group claims.
Politico

Kent State officials were so intent on keeping their search for a new president secret that they destroyed search committee notes and documents. Search committee member Tom Janson, a music professor, said KSU shredded his notes and documents after he interviewed prospects. “The notes are gone,” said anthropology professor Owen Lovejoy, another search committee member. “Everything’s been taken care of. We shredded anything with personal data.” When asked for comment about the reports of the shredding, KSU spokesman Eric Mansfield did not respond directly to the question. He reiterated what he has in the past — that KSU has done nothing wrong. “Kent State University neither has violated any public records laws nor has the university violated or failed to conform to any internal policy,” he said in an email. “We have turned over all records that are relevant.”
Akron Beacon Journal

The Iowa State Auditor will review confidentiality agreements and settlement payments involving former state workers. In a letter to state Sen. Jack Hatch, Auditor Mary Mosiman said her office has already begun looking into the controversy that has consumed the administration of Republican Gov. Terry Branstad in recent weeks and will conduct an investigation culminating in a public report. Her office is waiting, though, on direction and funding from the Legislature to fully engage in that investigation.
Des Moines Regisgter
 

Editorials/Columns

They might be institutions of higher learning, but Virginia’s community colleges are woefully ignorant of the U.S. Constitution. It took a lawsuit and a new upcoming state law to set them straight on the First Amendment. The executive committee of the Virginia Community College System’s governing board has unanimously agreed to eliminate so-called free-speech zones, which confined student expression to designated areas. It also acknowledged the long-standing requirement that any rules governing speech must be “content neutral.” Speech should not be relegated to such limited confines, where authorities get to decide who can speak up and when.
Daily Progress