Transparency News 4/23/19

Tuesday
April 23, 2019

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state & local news stories

VPAP has completed the integration of information from first-quarter campaign finance reports filed last week. The value-added work makes it possible to view each donor's complete giving history, sort a candidate's donors by industry or locality and get a better sense of how committees spend their funds.
Virginia Public Access Project

One company is planning to “raze” two office buildings on 601-701 12th Street S. in Pentagon City and develop four new towers with residential, office, and retail space. That’s according to a preliminary site plan filing with Arlington County. The plan also notes that the property’s current occupants — the Transportation Security Administration — are soon leaving the county. The county posted the address of the project on its website under “Preliminary Development Proposals” last week. However, the process of obtaining the plans revealed the county’s permitting and zoning offices were adapting the way they process records requests. After requesting to see a copy of the development proposal, this reporter was told by two zoning staff members that as of Monday, written Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests were required to view such documents. But during a subsequent inquiry Arlington’s Resident Ombudsman and Director of Constituent Services, Ben Aiken, said staff was mistaken. “There will be no requirement for a written request,” Aiken clarified.
ARLnow

Two days after an article appeared in the Martinsville Bulletin citing a terribly low ratio of mental health providers in Henry County, Piedmont Community Services Executive Director Greg Preston assembled several PCS officials to convey a message. Preston was alarmed at the article’s headline — “Residents in county have little mental aid; Henry County has low ratio of mental health providers. Martinsville is much better” — and he said on April 16 that he wanted to “make sure we establish community confidence we are providing good services, adequate services, accessible services. Prevention Director Bonnie Favero said she thinks reports such as County Health Rankings that isolate small cities from counties, such as separating Martinsville and Henry County, may skew data and make things appear worse than they really are.
Martinsville Bulletin

stories of national interest

The nation’s high court on Monday wrestled with whether government spending records from the nation’s largest food safety-net program are records that Congress intended to be released under a key federal transparency law. Much of the argument in Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media centered on the meaning and intent of the word “confidential” and its use in the Freedom of Information Act, which Congress passed in 1966 to make government records available to the public. The Food Marketing Institute, which represents grocers and other retailers, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the issue after a lower court ruled that spending records from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program could be released to the public. The justices appeared conflicted between upholding the spirit of the Freedom of Information Law, and the desire to stick to the literal meaning of the word “confidential.”
Argus Leader

The administration of Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin "willfully" withheld public records about sexual harassment and discrimination alleged by a former top social services official, Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd ruled Wednesday. As a result, the state must disclose the records of the allegations as well as pay legal costs for the Courier Journal, which sought the records after Adria Johnson, the former commissioner of the Department for Community Based Services, abruptly resigned last year, Shepherd said. Shepherd, who reviewed the disputed records in private, overruled the state's decision to release only heavily redacted documents that blacked out details including the identity of the male supervisor Johnson accused of harassment, job titles, descriptions of events and places, and the names of all other state employees or officials mentioned in the records including Bevin.
Courier Journal

It’s Monday in America again, and just four weeks ago, FOIA officers awoke to find fresh requests from MuckRock and the chance to become the champion of the greatest basketball/bureaucracy crossover event to ever hit the World Wide Web: FOIA March Madness 2019.  We asked 64 federal agencies to process the same request, a five-part inquiry into the people and payments that make the each one of their FOIA offices go. We asked you, our readers, to place your bets on which center of civil servitude would be the best at getting us what we wanted. And, today, we have the first round of winners to announce.
MuckRock

A wide variety of projects shows that once-controversial P3s are gaining acceptance in more quarters. The arrangements are contractual agreements that let private companies play a big role over a long time in building or running publicly owned properties, such as airports, buildings and, yes, toll roads.
Governing