Patrick County Board of Supervisors Chair Jonathan Wood has offered a public apology for discussing in private a matter that was ineligible for discussion in closed session. “Our board believes strongly in the concept of transparency,” Wood said at the end of the meeting last week. “At our last meeting, the work session on April 28, 2025, we went into closed meeting under the personnel exemption in the FOIA [Freedom of Information Act]. At that time, we honestly believed that our discussion of various salaries of county employees was subject in the FOIA. As it turns out, there are a couple of opinions of the Virginia Attorney General that suggest that the personnel exemption would not cover our closed meeting. “I view Mr. Wood’s admission with skepticism. It appears to be a direct response to my threat of legal action against him and his coalition,” Blue Ridge District Supervisor Steve Marshall said. “His statement, ‘we believed our discussion,’ is noteworthy. Supervisor [Doug] Perry and I did not receive the relevant spreadsheet before the meeting, while the other three supervisors did.” Marshall said the closed meeting included angry outbursts and his cellphone was seized during discussions he characterized as “cooking the books.”

In the wake of a sudden retirement announcement by Virginia’s longtime state police superintendent, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced that a nationwide search would take place to hire a replacement. But in the end, Youngkin chose an internal candidate while the recommendations from the nationwide search didn’t get a final-round interview, according to two sources familiar with Youngkin’s recruitment for the state police job. Both asked to remain anonymous given the sensitivity of the deliberations. The Times-Dispatch submitted a public records request for records relating to the hiring. The governor’s office withheld nearly all records with the exception of a receipt for services purchased by the firm: a D.C.-based group that was paid $50,000 for its work vetting candidates. The governor’s office cited a working papers exemption, as well as a personnel file exemption, as justification for not releasing the records.

Records show Virginia Department of Corrections staff were tasked with investigating claims of “brutality,” “racism” and “retaliation” at Red Onion State Prison in Wise County — and they quickly reported they found “no staff misconduct.” VPM News made a Freedom of Information Act request for text messages and emails from prison officials and Red Onion’s warden, David Anderson, most of which were withheld or redacted. The ones that were shared reveal that Anderson formed a task force to probe alleged misconduct at the prison he runs. They also show details about additional self-burning incidents at other Virginia state prisons and how Red Onion staff responded to them. … Anderson sent and received multiple text messages about self-burning incidents, per the FOIA records. That includes one text in January mentioning two incidents and two other messages on reported burnings — the Feb. 17 text about a burning at Red Onion and another in March about an incident at a prison in Sussex County.

The Department of Administrative Services (DAS) did not respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for phone numbers associated with Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO) staff because it thought it was a scam. The Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC) found DAS violated FOIA by ignoring the request for approximately four months. On June 7, 2024, Roger Codding requested a list of cellphones used by CHRO staff, including the name of the employee associated with the phone number, and text messages sent and received by one phone number for a one-year period. On June 24, Codding submitted a complaint to the FOIC alleging DAS had violated FOIA by failing to turn over any responsive records. At a hearing on the complaint, DAS’ unified communications manager testified that he ignored the request because he believed it was a scam. According to the hearing officer’s report, the communications manager, who is unnamed, also testified “that he had asked employees in his agency, including a DAS IT manager for advice and that he was told to ignore the email.” The agency also ignored followup emails inquiring about the request because they believed it was a scam.

The Arkansas Supreme Court has issued an order for a previously dismissed lawsuit filed by Attorney General Tim Griffin against the Board of Corrections to continue. The lawsuit, filed in 2023, claims that the Board of Corrections violated FOIA laws. Griffin claims the board failed to follow proper procedure in seeking private legal counsel in its separate lawsuit against the governor and former Secretary of Corrections Joe Profiri, and in so doing violated freedom of information laws.

The Department of Justice on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to block a ruling that requires DOGE to provide information about its government cost-cutting operations as part of court-ordered discovery. President Trump’s Justice Department sought an immediate halt to orders issued by US District Court for the District of Columbia. US Solicitor General John Sauer argued that the Department of Government Efficiency is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) as a presidential advisory body and not an official “agency.”