Transparency News 4/27/16

State and Local Stories

Norfolk Public Schools Superintendent Melinda Boone held a news conference Tuesday criticizing a report in The Virginian-Pilot about the school division’s inability to retrieve at least four years of academic information from an old database system. Boone argued the article, published Tuesday, was inaccurate and misleading, according to a video of the news conference. She repeatedly stressed the school system provided all required information to the state during the four years in question and that student transcripts are accurate and up to date – two things the article did not dispute. “I don’t take lightly intimations that could negatively impact our children and their families’ confidence in our efforts,” Boone said. She went on to complain about “comments that are made to intentionally plant seeds of doubt or mistrust” and “articles that are written without providing a full view of events, laden with conjecture, misquotes, and misrepresentations.” Boone did not specifically reference any misquotes or misrepresentations. In a follow-up email, a division spokeswoman also did not provide any examples of someone being misquoted. The article never mentioned the word “transcript.”
Virginian-Pilot

Virginia’s ethics monitors have determined that public officials can accept high-priced tickets as gifts simply because they and other attendees share a common interest in sports, music, theater or some other form of entertainment. The draft opinion from staff working for the Virginia Conflict of Interest and Ethics Advisory Council would allow lawmakers to accept free luxury-suite tickets to a Washington Redskins game above the state’s $100 gift cap because the official shares an interest in football with other Redskins fans, even those in the cheaper seats.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

The executive director of Virginia's ethics council has been shown the door just as the organization he helped build really gets rolling, apparently because some of the legislators who relied on him for advice thought he was an attorney. Chris Piper is not a lawyer, and he never claimed to be, according to Del. Todd Gilbert, one of four legislative members on the Ethics and Virginia Conflict of Interests Advisory Council. "I think I just assumed that we was," said Gilbert, R-Woodstock. "And that was the case for leadership and members that had gotten opinions from him. They thought they were talking to a lawyer."
Daily Press

The McAuliffe administration can't provide a tally of crimes committed by the roughly 206,000 former felons for whom it restored voting rights Friday because it doesn't have one, the governor's elections head said Tuesday. The administration worked more than six months on this project, including time spent assembling a list of felons who had completed their sentences and were living in Virginia. The department will not release that list, citing an exemption in state open records law, and says it doesn't have a breakdown of the crimes. The Freedom of Information Act exception the Department of Elections cited in denying access to its list of the newly enfranchised is a broad one, protecting from release "records about individuals" maintained in the state's "voter registration system." The requested list is not full of registered voters, though. Former felons who've had their rights restored must still register before they can vote in an election.
Daily Press

The Portsmouth City Council voted Tuesday to fire Jesse Andre Thomas as city auditor after a tenure that included two audits in three years. Vice Mayor Elizabeth Psimas led the effort. “I would like to make a motion to terminate the city auditor effective immediately per the terms of his contract,” Psimas said. She was joined by Councilmen Bill Moody, Paige Cherry, Curtis Edmonds and Danny Meeks. After the vote, the audience applauded. In his three years employed with the city, Thomas completed two audits and two special projects. Earlier Tuesday at a work session before he was fired, the council blocked Thomas from giving a presentation on a third audit, on the city’s recycling program and the Craney Island landfill. He said then that he had an audit report downstairs that he planned to share with the council Tuesday evening or this morning.
Virginian-Pilot

State investigators were unable to confirm many of the allegations raised by Franklin County parents of children with special needs but did identify systemic problems within the school district that require action, a long-awaited report released Tuesday details. The report, from a 14-person team at the Virginia Department of Education, found problems with Franklin County Public Schools’ record-keeping practices, noting in several areas that the district failed to maintain all of the necessary documentation required for students who receive special education services as a result of a disability.
Roanoke Times

Michael Pierce Sr. says he’ll leave city officials alone if they finally disclose evidence showing what happened the night Harrisonburg police shot and killed his son. He doesn’t believe the official determination — that the September shooting was justified because Michael Pierce Jr., 23, fired a shotgun at officers responding to a domestic disturbance. Pierce Sr. pleaded his case at Tuesday’s City Council meeting for the Harrisonburg Police Department to release body camera footage from the incident. “If I get evidence about that night, you won’t hear from me again,” he said. “I deserve as a taxpayer to be able to see that footage.” He’s not the only one who believes the footage should be released to the public. The Daily News-Record and other media outlets have filed requests through the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, both seeking the footage and the names of the officers involved in the incident. Last month, the Harrisonburg Police Department declined to release the information, citing several of what they say are exemptions to FOIA, including that body camera footage is classified as personnel record.
Daily News Record

A shorthanded Supreme Court already wading through the political thicket of abortion, contraception, immigration and affirmative action completes the term's oral arguments Wednesday by trying to define political corruption. The stakes are high not just for former Virginia governor Robert McDonnell, a rising star-turned-fallen angel in Republican circles, who faces two years in prison unless a majority of justices reverse lower court rulings against him. Politicians and prosecutors who tangle over bribery, extortion and corruption statutes will be watching closely for the justices' latest views on what constitutes business as usual in the corridors of power — and what's a felony. They include a rogues' gallery of convicted governors, mayors, members of Congress and state lawmakers.
USA Today



National Stories
​
It has long been established that public workers as a general matter may not be fired or demoted for speaking out on political topics. The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled on a case that involved a twist on that question: What if the official doing the demoting misunderstood what the worker had done? The justices, in a 6-to-2 decision, said it was unconstitutional to demote a police officer based on the mistaken assumption that he had engaged in political activity. “When an employer demotes an employee out of a desire to prevent the employee from engaging in political activity that the First Amendment protects, the employee is entitled to challenge that unlawful action,” Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote for the majority, “even if, as here, the employer makes a factual mistake about the employee’s behavior.”
New York Times

East Carolina University has declined to accommodate a Freedom of Information Act request by a faculty member regarding the release of video footage showing the violent campus assault of Patrick Myrick, and has yet to respond to a similar FOIA request from The East Carolinian. According to Patricia Egly Valentine, public records officer with East Carolina University, the video footage that has become the center of the police investigation is not public record because it is in possession of the ECU Police Department and is part of an ongoing investigation. In a statement addressed to ECU Professor Brian Massey, the university stated that the ECU Police Department also turned over a copy of the camera footage to the Greenville Police Department. After the GPD concluded their investigation on April 19, the case was handed over to the Pitt County District Attorney’s Office. According to Adam Goldstein, an attorney advocate with the Student Press Law Center, the state of North Carolina has special rules defining what evidence law enforcement must release to the public. Goldstein said that in North Carolina video surveillance footage is not required to be released by law enforcement and that ECU Police’s decision to not release any campus alert did not violate the Clery Act because they determined that there was no ongoing threat to the safety of the community.
The East Carolinian


Editorials/Columns

There have been a number of articles in The Star recently regarding the Virginia Freedom of Information Act that cast an unfavorable light on how various area officials are responding to valid requests for information. These articles illustrate a need for reform, but what kind of reform do we need? One article suggests improved accountability by revising the Freedom of Information Act, while another highlights a recent local case where an area official misapplied the law. We need to balance the desire for increased accountability with the need for accurate application of exemptions and rules that already exist.
Matthew L. Kreitzer, Winchester Star