Transparency News 4/3/19

gradient_top.jpg
 

VCOG LOGO CMYK small 3

Wednesday
April 3, 2019

spacer.gif


Eventbrite - ACCESS 2019: VCOG's Open Government Conference
April 11 | Hampton University
 
divider.gif
 

state & local news stories

 

 

quote_1.jpg

"He said that the EDA will release it when legal counsel believes 'the time is right.'”

The Town Council is demanding to see the findings of an audit report detailing alleged embezzlement or misappropriation of the Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority’s finances of more than $17 million. Council members during a Monday work session unanimously agreed to vote next week on a resolution seeking the audit report. After that, Town Attorney Doug Napier said he will file a Freedom of Information Act request for the report. If the FOIA request is denied, he said the town could take the EDA to circuit court over the matter. Napier noted that the town has been left "in the dark, to say the least," but is legally entitled to receive the report. John Anzivino, interim EDA director, explained on Tuesday that the report remains a draft and is not complete. He said that the EDA will release it when legal counsel believes “the time is right.”
The Northern Virginia Daily

A leading opponent of the youth correctional center near Windsor spent $877 to track emails and other correspondence on the project from its beginnings in 2017. The Freedom of Information Act request was made and paid for by Richard J. “Dick” Holland Jr., CEO and chairman of the board of Farmers Bank, a former member of the Economic Development Authority, and an outspoken opponent of the proposed youth facility.  Holland and a group of residents provided The Smithfield Times with a notebook of the emails and correspondence, spanning a time frame from Dec. 7. 2017 to March 1, 2019.
The Smithfield Times

Nine out of 10 city employees who responded to an anonymous survey said they’d report “unethical behavior” if they saw it in City Hall, but 42 percent of the same group said they’d be scared to do so. The findings come from a survey of the city’s 4,000-plus employees who answered a series of queries circulated via email in March by the Richmond City Council’s Ethics Reform Task Force. About 600 workers responded. The recommendations include instituting new rules governing conflicts of interest or perceived conflicts of interest. The policies should require city employees to disclose personal or private relationships or associations with any vendor or third party, as well as relationships or associations with any prospective job candidate or employee under consideration for a promotion or pay raise, the task force said.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

divider.gif
 
 

editorials & columns

 

quote_3.jpg

"It falls to citizens to put a stop to it, by demanding that board members live up to their expectations under the law or face the consequences at the ballot box."

NORFOLK SCHOOL BOARD members have forgotten there are rules and expectations for holding public office. For at least the fourth time in several months, members met on March 27 without giving proper notice to the public. Each instance represents a violation of Virginia’s open meetings law, which specifies the reasons a public body can meet in private and the protocol for doing so. If the board was truly contrite about meeting behind closed doors, it would cease from doing so. Repeated offenses suggest that members believe this is a perfectly reasonable way to conduct the people’s business. It falls to citizens to put a stop to it, by demanding that board members live up to their expectations under the law or face the consequences at the ballot box.   It’s a lesson that citizens shouldn’t have to teach, but it might be the only way school board members will learn. 
The Virginian-Pilot

Categories: