Transparency News 6/24/19

Monday
June 24, 2019

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state & local news stories

A Richmond judge this week sided against Mayor Levar Stoney for a second time in the mayor’s effort to withhold documents related to a proposal that would use property tax revenue to pay for downtown development that includes replacing the Richmond Coliseum. Paul Goldman, a lawyer and former chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia, said he now has the records he wanted from Freedom of Information Act requests he made to the city in May. Richmond Circuit Judge Melvin Hughes on May 29 ordered Stoney to turn over the records; in June, Stoney filed court papers challenging the ruling and asking the judge to reconsider so the city could file an appeal with the Supreme Court of Virginia. Melvin signed an order Thursday denying Stoney’s request. Asked by email Friday if the mayor wishes he’d simply turned over the records to Goldman, Stoney spokesman Jim Nolan said the mayor had no regrets.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

It is not all that unusual for a city, town or county to receive a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from one of its elected officials, according to an expert. Alan Gernhardt, executive director of the Virginia Freedom of Information Council, declined to give an opinion about Berryville Mayor Patricia Dickinson’s recent submission of a formal FOIA request to Town Manager Keith Dalton because he did not know all of the details pertaining to it. But “it doesn’t surprise me at all” that she submitted one, Gernhardt said. There is no reason why an elected official or government employee cannot use FOIA to get information they consider important, according to Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government. “Elected officials have no more — but no fewer, either — rights under FOIA” than a regular citizen or member of the news media, Rhyne wrote in a blog on the coalition’s website after reading The Winchester Star’s coverage of Dickinson’s request online.
The Winchester Star

A Berryville resident says he plans to sue Mayor Patricia Dickinson, claiming she violated his free speech rights by hiding comments he made to her Facebook page and banning him from it. At issue are comments that Brian McClemens posted in opposition to the McDonald’s fast-food restaurant that recently opened on North Buckmarsh Street in Berryville. McClemens added that he is willing to drop the suit if Dickinson resigns. That is what he intends for the suit’s outcome to be, he said. 
The Winchester Star

stories of national interest

Back in 2017, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster made transparency of state agencies a priority. Over the past 2 years, the office of inspector general has studied 35 statewide agencies to see if the agencies are complying with the state’s open records law. On Thursday, a study of those executive agencies has been released. The report looked at how state agencies are complying to a new state law expanding procedures to obtain vital information from agencies.
News2

A federal appeals court on Thursday issued a sharp criticism of a Cleveland judge’s decision to block the release of a government database that tracks prescription opioid sales and shipments. Judges from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a protective order by U.S. District Judge Dan Polster that prohibited the public release of information from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Automated Reports and Consolidated Ordering System, or ARCOS database. The judge ordered the DEA to hand over a large portion of the database to the parties he presided over in a large set of litigation concerning the nation’s opioid epidemic. Polster later denied requests from media outlets to release the information, noting concerns from the DEA and drug companies that the database contained confidential commercial information and information compiled for law enforcement purposes. The appeals court judges noted, however, that when Polster ruled that the database should be given to the parties in the litigation, he said the interest in the parties having it outweighed the DEA’s and defendant’s concerns. The court said Polster can decide on arguments by the DEA on whether certain portions of the database should be shielded from public view but cannot just block the entire thing from being made available.
Cleveland.com

Paul Manafort had a sympathetic media ally in Sean Hannity as federal investigators closed in and ultimately prosecuted the former Trump campaign chairman for a series of financial crimes and witness tampering, according to hundreds of text messages released Friday. The exchanges — which a federal judge ordered unsealed and placed onto the public court docket — cover a period starting around the FBI’s summertime 2017 raid on Manafort's Northern Virginia home and extending through the late spring of 2018, when the longtime GOP operative was gearing up for back-to-back criminal trials.
Politico

 

editorials & columns

Virginia Beach has been called out by the families of several victims for not being as open, forthcoming or responsive to their requests, and have called for an independent investigation of the incident — something along the lines of that conducted in the wake of the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” march in Charlottesville. However, it’s also important to remember that, while we all want answers now, the work being conducted by investigators in pain-staking and requires care, deliberation and an attention to detail. Better that the criminal part of this process be done slowly, so long as it is done correctly, rather than it be done swiftly but errantly.Still unredacted employment records, copies of communications with supervisors and coworkers, witness accounts and a thorough detailing of all evidence will help resolve some of the unknowns that continue to surround this awful event. Preaching patience is fine so long as the plan is ultimately to deliver these items for public review and to exhaust all requests for information. That should be the instrument by which this endeavor should be measured.
The Virginian-Pilot