Transparency News 6/27/13

 

Thursday, June 27, 2013
  State and Local Stories

 

Already under fire for sending racist emails and making references to "Confederate money" at meetings, Isle of Wight Board of Supervisors Vice Chairman Byron "Buzz" Bailey is now facing criticism — and possibly a harassment complaint — because of acomment he made at last week's board meeting that some people perceived as sexist. At the June 20 Board of Supervisors meeting, Chairwoman JoAnn Hall was discussing her election as vice chairwoman of the Western Tidewater Regional Jail Authority Board, where she previously served as secretary. Bailey said, "(Suffolk City Council member Mike) Duman was elected to take your place as secretary and he said he wasn't wearing a dress and nobody could sit in his lap."
Daily Press

The Hampton Roads Transit Authority owes the city at least $2.5 million because of overpayments for bus routes traveling into Norfolk and Chesapeake, city officials say. Portsmouth officials notified HRT of the problem after reviewing the city’s annual transit service plan. Every year, the authority submits a plan to each of its cities that includes details of bus routes, including the costs. Portsmouth officials discovered that, given the current paths of HRT Routes 44 and 45, they would overpay the authority by $627,000 for the fiscal year starting July 1, said Fred Brusso, the city’s interim planning director.
Virginian-Pilot

Spotsylvania County is retaining its membership in the Virginia and national associations of counties despite continued concerns over some of the organizations’ legislative positions. Representatives from the two groups addressed the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, touting the savings to the county through VACO’s insurance for local government employees and NACO’s prescription drug discount program for residents.
Free Lance-Star

Danville Councilman Fred O. Shanks III, 55, is facing a charge of domestic assault and battery following a Tuesday night incident with his adult son. Danville police responded to a call of a domestic assault in the 300 block of West Main Street at about 11 p.m. Tuesday, according to a news release from the Danville Police Department. “Officers determined that a 22-year-old son of the resident came to the house and asked for food,” the release stated. “Because the son is banned from entering the home, the father agreed to feed the son while they sat on chairs in the back yard. The altercation occurred when the son attempted to enter the home after the meal.”
Register & Bee

National Stories

The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government is asking Gov. Susana Martinez’s administration torelease detailed records the administration previously denied about travel and expensesassociated with the governor’s security detail. The open-government group on Tuesday filed an Inspection of Public Records Act request for “the schedules of any overtime paid to and all travel expenses of officers assigned to Gov. Susana Martinez’s security detail” in August, September and October 2012. The period was the height of the 2012 election season, during which Martinez took several political trips accompanied by a taxpayer-paid security detail.
Albuquerque Journal

The Web site Ars Technica published logs of online chats in which Edward J. Snowden was believed to have participated, telling a friend that leakers “should be shot.”
New York Times

Tennessee is revealing more details into its investigation as to why hundreds of patients' records were in an abandoned building on the Lakeshore Mental Health Institute in Knoxville. In April, former Lakeshore employee Hilda Lindeman found the records lying in the abandoned Waterside building during an afternoon jog. The papers she found included the social security numbers, case numbers and birthdates of former patients. The names on the records dated back as far as 1995.
The Tennesseean

Microsoft has joined Google in petitioning the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in an effort to allow the firm to publish more details about national security requests, according to a document released Wednesday.
Politico

Authors and publishers of controversial scientific articles, and the companies sponsoring those articles, won broad free speech protection from a U.S. appeals court on Wednesday. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said statements of scientific conclusions on matters open to scientific debate, and which are published in a research article, cannot result in damages associated with defamation.
Reuters

Editorials/Columns

Darrell Laurent, News & Advance: Even though Gerald K. Haines long has been associated with the Central Intelligence Agency, his visit to the Democracy Vineyards in Nelson County on Saturday is no secret. “He’s a former neighbor of mine,” Democracy co-owner Jim Turpin said, “and I thought he’d make an interesting speaker, especially because of what happened recently with the Snowden case.”

Gene Policinski, Herald Courier: It’s important to note that there are no modifiers about free speech in the 45 words of the First Amendment. Nothing about being nice, polite or sensible and nothing about prohibiting speech that is insulting, hateful or disgusting. What the nation’s founders set out in creating the First Amendment’s protection for free speech, and its companion freedoms of press, religion, assembly and petition, was a place where people could express themselves freely and exchange views and information on important issues of the day – the so-called “marketplace of ideas.”