Transparency News 5/25/16
State and Local Stories
Known as the “Heroes of the Fifty States,” the Open Government Hall of Fame is a joint initiative of the National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC) and the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). Inductees are recognized for their "long and steady effort to preserve and protect the free flow of information about state and local government that is vital to the public in a democracy." Formal induction takes place on October 8th, during the 2016 NFOIC Freedom of Information Summit in Washington, DC. The State Open Government Hall of Fame is open to anyone who has made a substantial, sustained and lasting contribution to open government or freedom of information within one particular state. Even if the nominee has been active in national efforts or national organizations, the judges will only consider accomplishments at the state level.
NFOIC (for nomination details)
A popular chemistry lab demonstration that went awry and burned five students at a Fairfax County high school in October was performed without a ventilation hood, safety goggles or guidelines from the school system on how to conduct it, according to a safety investigation. The fire at W.T. Woodson High School on the Friday before Halloween prompted the school system to rewrite its safety protocols and ban the demonstration — known as a “rainbow flame” — which involves igniting a pool of ethyl alcohol on a lab table and adding salts to change the color of the flames. The district also temporarily suspended all activities involving open flames in classrooms while teachers were retrained. According to the investigative report obtained by The Washington Post through the Freedom of Information Act, the teacher told investigators that she poured ethyl alcohol from a beaker onto a demonstration table and ignited it. She then introduced different kinds of salts to the flame.
Washington Post
The Portsmouth City Council went into closed session Tuesday night to discuss litigation relating to the relocation of the Confederate monument. It is unclear what was discussed. Council members may be fined for talking about closed sessions. Councilman Bill Moody objected to discussing the monument in closed session, arguing there wasn't actually any pending litigation. The other four councilmen in attendance voted yes. Vice Mayor Elizabeth Psimas and Councilman Danny Meeks were not present.
Virginian-Pilot
The Virginia Retirement System has drawn up a bill for John Rowe, who received retirement pay while working full-time as Portsmouth City Manager and receiving full-time pay. There's also a bill for Portsmouth, which didn't make its required contributions to the state for Rowe's retirement pay. City Manager Lydia Pettis Patton said Tuesday night that the city's obligation is $100,032.
Virginian-Pilot
Ed Oyer has been to around 600 county meetings since 1973. On Tuesday night, the Board of Supervisors dedicated a plaque in his honor where he usually sits in the pews of the board room. Supervisors have come to respect him over his tenure as the unofficial dean of public comment in James City County for his candid views, occasional criticism and mastering of policy.
Virginian Gazette
National Stories
The U.S. government demanded six figures to produce data on foreign travelers and air traffic, at a time when scrutiny of these issues has come to boil, a journalist claims in a federal complaint. A tourism writer for a digital subsidiary of Atlantic Magazine, David Yanofsky says all of the statistics he seeks are related to his reporting on the hot topic of foreign travel and immigration to the United States. Yanofsky's requests under the Freedom of Information Act implicate "matters of public concern such as visa allocations, infrastructure at ports and border crossings, and strategies to ease the entry and exit process for visitors to and from the United States," the May 19 complaint states.
Courthouse News Service
Scottsdale, Arizona, will bar the Satanic Temple from leading a scheduled prayer at a City Council meeting in July, city officials announced Monday. Scottsdale informed the Satanic Temple's Arizona chapter, which is based in Tucson, that only "representatives from institutions that have a substantial connection to the Scottsdale community" will be allowed to give the invocation, city spokesman Kelly Corsette said in an e-mail. The Satanic Temple had planned to urge Scottsdale listeners to embrace a "Luciferian impulse" before closing the prayer with "hail Satan," according to a draft obtained by The Republic in March. The group promotes religious agnosticism and does not believe in the supernatural.
Arizona Republic
Editorials/Columns
The mere fact that the feds have taken an interest in Virginia’s governor — again and so soon — speaks to something wrong in Richmond. Unfortunately, the apparatuses of the state seem institutionally uninterested in fixing the problem, of doing more than tinkering with the size and nature of permissible gifts that have long determined the culture at the Capitol. Worse, the last legislative session saw powerful lawmakers — chief among them, Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment — eager to roll back the modest reforms imposed since the commonwealth’s last run-in with the feds.
Virginian-Pilot
Once we had a reputation for electing gray, uninspiring governors whose level of competence and intellect may have varied but who could at least be counted on to be above suspicion when it came to matters of money. Now, we’re wondering which cesspool of a state we should be compared with. Is it Maryland, which had the misfortune of having Spiro Agnew (who pleaded no contest to tax evasion) and Marvin Mandel (convicted of mail fraud and racketeering) back-to-back? Or how about Illinois (which not only had two consecutive governors sent to prison, but saw four of its last seven governors convicted)?
Roanoke Times
