Transparency News 6/2/15

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

State and Local Stories


The Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors has about two weeks to decide if they want to continue the court battle to lead sectarian Christian prayers at their meetings. State Sen. Bill Stanley — who has been representing the board in court on the issue for the past three-and-a-half-years — said he considers the court’s decision Friday a win because it does allow sectarian prayer, a reversal of its original decision that the name of Jesus could not be used in prayers at the meetings. The court ruled Friday that while outside pastors could lead the invocation at board meetings — and those prayers could be Christian — the members of the board of supervisors could not lead those sectarian prayers. But, Stanley said, the court introduced something new Friday when it said sectarian prayer would be allowed — but the supervisors would not be able to say the prayers but would have to leave that to members of the community. “We believe it has merit on appeal,” Stanley said after a closed-door meeting with the supervisors Monday night.
Register & Bee

The 263 lost SAT tests that had students preparing for a June 20 retake have been found. The answer sheets from the tests taken May 2 at Broad Run High School were found in a sealed box on a cart in the school's shipping area before noon Monday. "A thorough review of how the box ended up on this cart is underway," Wayde Byard, Loudoun County Public Schools spokesman, wrote in an email. A representative of Educational Testing Services was on hand when the box was discovered. The test results will be validated, and affected students probably will not need to retake the SAT, according to a statement from the school system. The ETS representative is hand-carrying the box to an ETS facility in Princeton, NJ, where its contents will be examined. The school system initially told the press that surveillance cameras showed a UPS employee leaving with boxes that contained the tests. But Monday's statement said that cameras show the cart holding the box containing the tests entering the shipping area, but that the footage does not show what happened to the cart between then and its pickup by UPS at 3 p.m.
Leesburg Today

The Fairfax County deputy county attorney who faced being fired over how she handled a case involving the police shooting of an unarmed man will keep her job after all, officials said Monday. Cynthia L. Tianti had been placed on administrative leave in March in the wake of a public outcry over several aspects of the investigation into the 2013 shooting of John Geer. On Monday, a lawyer representing County Attorney David P. Bobzien in the termination proceedings said Tianti will keep her job, but will focus only on matters related to the county Community Services Board, which provides services for people with mental illnesses and substance abuse problems. E-mails obtained by The Washington Post show that Tianti counseled Fairfax police to withhold internal affairs files from the county prosecutor investigating the shooting, which occurred during a response to a domestic dispute at Geer’s Springfield townhouse.
Washington Post

After five full months of dysfunctional behavior that has resulted in a leaderless governing body, the Halifax County Board of Supervisors yielded to the public’s demand, got their acts together and successfully elected a chairman and vice chairman during their regular monthly meeting Monday night in Halifax. In an 8-0 vote, ED-4 Supervisor Doug Bowman was elected chairman, and ED-7 Supervisor Lottie Nunn was elected vice-chairman. Both supervisors are not seeking re-election to their seats in the Nov. 3 election. The change in behavior of board members led some citizens attending the meeting to wonder out loud what kind of “happy pills” the eight board members had taken before Monday night’s meeting. “Congratulations are in order. We’ve just finished the organizational items from January’s agenda. That ought to make headline news,” Bowman quipped.
Gazette-Virginian


National Stories
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Sixty-four percent of adults in the United States own smartphones, according to the Pew Research Center. Four years ago, about half that number did. Many depend on their smartphones for online access, whether they're applying for jobs, checking their bank accounts, paying bills, following breaking news events or sharing photos and videos. Never has it been this fast and easy to take a photo or video and share it online for everyone to see. That brings us to a few important questions. When am I breaking the law with my smartphone? Can law enforcement simply take my phone from me? The Indianapolis Star asked these questions of Indianapolis defense attorney Chris Eskew, who was a public defender for five years before opening his private practice. Eskew handles major felony cases, such as murder, sex crimes and drug-dealing charges.
USA Today

It's not unusual for an angry driver to let loose colorful invective upon driving over a pothole. But in Panama City, the potholes themselves are talking -- and sharing their gripes on Twitter. "I feel terrible. I just caused tire damage to an old lady's car," a pothole recently tweeted on the account El Hueco Twitero (The Tweeting Pothole), which is followed by almost 3,000 people. "At least tell me what I need and I'll cover myself," tweeted another. The potholes had their say via a device placed inside them that contains pressure and motion sensors and an RF transmitter that triggers a tweet to the Ministry of Public Works (MOP) every time a car runs over the chasms. The details of the tweets seem to be selected randomly -- these potholes aren't just peeved, they're creative.
CNET News

Editorials/Columns

Norfolk resident Danny Lee Ginn made his point ages ago: He detests Councilman Paul Riddick, and he wants other council members to issue a vote of "no confidence" in their colleague. Instead, Ginn has appeared repeatedly over the past three years to berate Riddick at City Council meetings, according to reporting by The Pilot's Tim Eberly. After months of keeping quiet, Riddick finally fired back during an April 14 meeting. Public officials know they must face the slings and arrows of the electorate. That goes with the job. Residents, however, should be civil when assailing officials. Otherwise, the critics become the story - not the politicians.
Virginian-Pilot

Partisan, legislative redistricting, since the dawn of the Republic, has been the bane good-government advocates. Districts drawn to benefit incumbents and the party in power are a disservice to citizens and voters and undermine confidence in the political process. We’ve long advocated Virginia should adopt a nonpartisan — or at least bipartisan — redistricting process, giving the job of redrawing districts for the Virginia Senate, House of Delegates and the U.S. House of Representatives to an independent commission. The costs of partisan redistricting are high, as we alluded to earlier. But then there are also the very real monetary costs of partisan redistricting gone bad. And those are costs the taxpayers usually wind up shouldering.
News & Advance