Transparency News 6/29/17

Thursday, June 29, 2017



State and Local Stories

With calls for change circulating in Hanover County, the locality’s elected officials doubled down on the status quo when it came time to appoint two School Board members. Hanover’s Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to reappoint School Board members Susan P. Dibble and Norman K. Sulser as the South Anna District and Cold Harbor District representatives, respectively. With a group called Hanover Citizens for an Elected School Board gathering signatures for a petition to have a referendum on whether the county should switch to an elected School Board, Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Angela Kelly-Wiecek congratulated the appointees and encouraged the other nominees to stay involved.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

A proposal to boost the pay for Roanoke County supervisors was struck from Tuesday's meeting agenda by board consensus. Vice Chairwoman Martha Hooker requested that the proposal be removed from the agenda at the start of the 3 p.m. meeting. Chairman Joe McNamara verified that other supervisors were in support of that, and it was deleted without further comment.
Roanoke Times

A 21-year-old man who pleaded guilty last week to filing 18 phony voter registration applications in Harrisonburg will spend 100 to 120 days in prison, according to federal prosecutors in the Western District of Virginia. Andrew J. Spieles of Harrisonburg admitted to filing the fraudulent registrations in August while working with Democratic-affiliated groups as a student at James Madison University ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Daily Progress

Augusta County supervisor Michael Shull's claim Tuesday that the other county board members voted to close the Company 10 fire station to spite Staunton for its rebuff of their courthouse plan set off a wave of heated remarks between the supervisors at their meeting Wednesday night. There’s no spite," board chairm Tracy Pyles said. “It’s a lie from hell to say that we [voted to close Company 10 out of spite]." “And somebody ought to be ashamed of themselves to say that we did that," he said.
News Leader

On one side, impassioned Prince William County residents dressed in green shirts argued that constructing a new house of worship would disrupt their quiet community, choke the roads with traffic and go against the zoning regulations meant to protect the rural enclave. On the other side, their Muslim neighbors said that all they wanted was a place to pray in their own community — and that opposition to their plans to construct a mosque might arise out of not just technical arguments about land use but also bias against Islam. d testimony on Tuesday night, which included 170 speakers and went past 3 a.m., the Prince William Board of County Supervisors voted to approve the mosque.
Washington Post



National Stories
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On June 22, 2017, a complaint was filed against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by American Oversight, a nonprofit organization (Plaintiff), in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.  The complaint asks the court to compel EPA to provide information in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request submitted by the Plaintiff on April 11, 2017, “seeking communications between certain individuals at each agency and certain outside entities related to chlorpyrifos or other pesticides.” The complaint asserts that although EPA responded to the FOIA request by stating that it was “proceeding with the search,” EPA “has not taken any additional actions,” and as of June 14, 2017, had not provided any of the requested records.
The National Law Review

In a unanimous decision penned by Circuit Judge Kavanaugh, the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed a lower court decision holding that the EPA properly withheld information from its response to several environmental groups' Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) requests.  The court held that Section 308 of the Clean Water Act (“CWA”) does not supersede Exemption 4 of FOIA. Id.  In relevant part, Section 308 of the CWA states that effluent data shall be made available to the public, unless releasing the information would divulge trade secrets.  33 U.S.C. § 1318(b) (1987).  Exemption 4 under FOIA, however, allows the government to withhold information that would reveal a company’s trade secrets or commercial or financial information.  5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(4) (2016).
Lexology

The conservative group Judicial Watch is taking the Environmental Protection Agency to court over failing to hand over documents detailing its use of social media to promote the Obama administration's Waters of the U.S. Rule. The group filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the EPA to release internal documents and emails related to its use of the Thunderclap social media platform after the Government Accountability Office found its use to be an illegal form of propaganda.
Washington Examiner

A journalist and documentary filmmaker sued the Justice Department for the release of FBI records about a surveillance program she says targeted Arab-American communities outside Chicago before 9/11. Assia Boundaoui filed a lawsuit against the FBI and Department of Justice in Chicago federal court on Monday, claiming they have refused to hand over records about a particular investigation in violation of the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA.
Courthouse News Service

What some legislators call a reminder to University of North Carolina system schools that their correspondence with members of athletic organizations are deemed public records has received final General Assembly approval. The Senate agreed Wednesday night to a small change to the measure made by the House. The bill heading to Gov. Roy Cooper also applies to other documents associated with the schools' membership in the NCAA, Atlantic Coast Conference or other athletic leagues.
McClatchy

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf says he will sign a controversial Senate bill that would limit public access to police footage. Under the bill, police footage (audio and video recordings from both body cameras and dashboard cameras) would become exempt from the state’s public-records law. That means police departments wouldn’t be required to release footage to those whose request it. The state Senate passed the legislation without debate in a 49-1 vote Tuesday. Wolf says he will OK the bill despite reservations that it could limit transparency. The governor called Senate Bill 560 an “important first step” because it changes state law to enable police departments to use body cameras, specifically in private residences.
Philadelphia Inquirer


Editorials/Columns


Officials who have worked with Doug Smith gush about the newly minted Norfolk city manager. And these are folks who don’t even live in Norfolk. Their glowing critique of Smith, who’s toiled in three local governments and the private sector, speaks to his wide-ranging municipal experience, even-keeled demeanor and ability to connect with citizens and bureaucrats alike. They’re not wrong – even if their praise seems almost too good to be true. So it’s exasperating that Norfolk council members chose to be so secretive about the names of the candidates. You’ve heard the council’s unconvincing refrain before: The best applicants won’t apply if they know their names will be publicized. They could lose their job at their current employer. (Or leverage that news to get a raise.) Unlike a job in the private sector, however, Norfolk’s residents deserved the opportunity to scrutinize this very important – and taxpayer-funded – hire.
Roger Chesley, Virginian-Pilot