Transparency News 5/8/17

Monday, May 8, 2017

State and Local Stories

A rogue supervisor shredded documents, bullied employees and ruled a social services department that brushed aside reports of child abuse for years – while a board that oversees the agency sat in silence. That scenario, revealed by a special grand jury investigation of the Rockbridge Area Department of Social Services, did not amount to criminal conduct, the grand jury concluded. But in a report of its findings released last week, the panel made nearly 20 recommendations for how to correct the “gross negligence, dysfunctional dynamic and rank incompetence” that it found. The 24-page report unsealed Tuesday by Circuit Judge Malfourd “Bo” Trumbo details the reasons charges could not be brought. The final six pages contain suggested solutions to the administrative shortcomings the grand jury found.
Roanoke Times

Personalized license plates are used to convey all kinds of messages with just a handful of letters — jokes about a family surname, a tongue-in-cheek reference to a profession or an ode to a favorite sports team. But some vanity plate requests are made in vain. State departments of motor vehicles have a license to kill any plate they deem inappropriate. In 2016, 1,302 plates were rejected in Virginia. In the same year, Tennessee rejected just 18.
Herald Courier


National Stories
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The chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services sent a letter last month to the head of the Treasury Department instructing him to decline Freedom of Information requests relating to communications between the two offices, a letter that open records advocates called “deeply troubling.” The letter reads that since the Committee on Financial Services has legislative and oversight jurisdiction over the Treasury Department, all records of communication between the two offices and any documents produced remain in the committee’s control — even when in the physical possession of the Treasury Department.
Buzz Feed

Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced the signing of an executive order Thursday that creates a new policy setting an “open by default” standard for all District government data. The order’s signing, announced at the launch of #innoMAYtion, Bowser’s monthlong civic-tech promotion initiative, includes a directive to treat the city’s data as a valuable resource and adds new classifications and governance around publishing data to the district’s open data portal. The wording of the policy was selected based on recommendations made by transparency advocacy nonprofit Sunlight Foundation. Codifying best practices in an open data policy this way encourages agencies to share their data by providing instruction and rigor around what is a relatively new practice for government.
State Scoop

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s response to the Trump administration pulling down its website detailing information about climate change: putting up his own. The new section of the City of Chicago’s website, launched this weekend, pulls data from the archived Environmental Protection Agency page.
Politico

Editorials/Columns


Local judges – often with questionable legal justification – have been muzzling the news media’s coverage of several recent cases, including fatal shootings, a rape, and a state legislator accused of assaulting a child. Jurists have kept us out of the courtroom, or dictated we can’t report names of teen defendants in murder cases. On the latter, the teens would be tried as adults if their charges reach circuit court. I’m talking about some horrific crimes. The rape case, for example, involves an Uber driver accused of attacking a passenger. These media roadblocks are maddening. Ultimately, the public is left uninformed about heinous incidents. Attorneys for The Virginian-Pilot and other local news outlets have gone to court to protest.
Roger Chesley, Virginian-Pilot