Transparency News 6/6/16
State and Local Stories
The FOIA Council’s subcommittee on meetings meets today at 1:00. Here is the agenda and supporting materials (scroll down). The public is encouraged to attend.
An April trade mission to Europe, involving Gov. Terry McAuliffe and a team of economic development officials, cost the state more than $186,000. Nightly hotel costs ranged from $146 a person up to $669, boosted in some cases by high demand in cities hosting major trade expos. The governor's 10-person team flew business class and coach, and officials took a train under the English channel to get from Brussels to London. The state paid for professional photography, a London public relations team and a hotel dinner party highlighting the Virginia wine industry. Bills from a pair of London-based consulting firms working on the trip topped $50,000, and the cost of renting and running a booth at a trade fair in Germany cost about $29,000. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership charged the Daily Press $78 for these records and various receipts and other documents associated with the trip. The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services provided its trip records for free. Andrew Cassey, an associate economics professor at Washington State University, examined trip data from all 50 states from 1997 to 2006. Among other things, he found that Virginia's governors visited foreign destinations more often than any other governors; 31 times in the 10-year period.
Daily Press
Portsmouth Councilman Danny Meeks dislikes the city’s “closed meeting rule.” He wants a judge to order the council to never fine its members again. But not everyone agrees – including one of Meeks’ own attorneys. In an odd twist, Meeks is a plaintiff and a defendant in lawsuits stemming from the rule, which the council has used in recent months to fine members for publicly discussing topics raised – or about to be raised – during closed sessions. He now has attorneys arguing both the legality and illegality of the rule.
Virginian-Pilot
The pending prosecution of the son of state Del. Lionell Spruill Sr. on fraud charges highlights gray areas regarding conflicts in the court system. Norfolk Commonwealth’s Attorney Greg Underwood asked to be disqualified from handling the case. The reason is because he has a professional and political relationship with Del. Spruill, said Amanda Howie, a spokeswoman for Underwood. The felony fraud case against Spruill Jr. will be dealt with by Virginia Beach Commonwealth’s Attorney Colin Stolle, a Republican. But Stolle’s brother, Del. Chris Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, serves in the state House of Delegates with the defendant’s father. “This gets at Virginia’s lack of real clear ethics guidelines for public officials. Right now, we have to trust elected officials to say, ‘I feel like I have a conflict here and I need to remove myself,’ ” Christopher Newport University political science professor Quentin Kidd said.
Virginian-Pilot
The head of Harrisonburg's Harriet Tubman Cultural Center will lead a petition effort asking for a recall from office of Augusta County Commissioner of the Revenue Jean Shrewsbury. Stan Maclin, the president of the center, will attempt to get petition signatures of Augusta County registered voters to recall Shrewsbury, said Mike Donovan, the CEO of Nexus Services, Inc. Donovan made the announcement during a Thursday press conference at the Rockingham County Courthouse in Harrisonburg. He also asked for Shrewsbury's resignation. The press conference was where Maclin and several civil rights leaders expressed criticism for the use of Hitler emojis in emails exchanged between employees of the commissioner of the revenue offices in Harrisonburg and Augusta County. Nexus Services discovered the emails with the Hitler emojis after receiving thousands of emails requested in a Freedom of Information request made to Augusta County.
News Virginian
National Stories
A New York State appeals court unanimously ruled Thursday that the New York Police Department (NYPD) does not need to disclose records relating to investigations or surveillance of a Harlem imam and a Rutgers University student. Talib W. Abdur-Rashid, the imam, and Samir Hashmi, the student, had made their requests in 2012 under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL). The NYPD, however, invoked what is known as the Glomar response, a rule that allows agencies to neither confirm nor deny the existence of records if doing so would harm law enforcement efforts.
NBC News
Hours before Hillary Clinton was set to deliver a major foreign policy address Thursday, the Republican National Committee released copies of classified nondisclosure agreements signed by a pair of Clinton's top aides. The agreements, obtained by the RNC through the Freedom of Information Act, indicated both Clinton staffers had been specifically instructed on how to handle "marked or unmarked" classified material upon their arrival at the State Department in early 2009. Jake Sullivan, former director of policy planning, and Bryan Pagliano, Clinton's former information technology specialist, both signed the classified information nondisclosure forms. By signing the document, Sullivan acknowledged that "negligent handling" of classified information could carry consequences. Sullivan reportedly sent the highest number of now-classified emails through Clinton's private server.
Washington Examiner
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker signed into law today legislation that will improve access to public records and provide recourse to citizens unjustly denied government information. The law will take effect Jan. 1, 2017, and includes several improvements such as: Appeal Process | The Supervisor of Records must provide a ruling on all appeals within 10 business days. Requestors choosing to litigate their cases may now be awarded attorney fees. While those fees are discretionary, the new law requires a presumption by the court in favor of fees. Limiting Fees | If custodians do not respond to a request within the required 10 business days, no fee for the records can be charged. Records must be provided in electronic form when available and printing costs are capped at 5 cents per page. State agencies must provide the first four hours of staff time at no cost. Municipalities with a population of at least 20,000 must provide the first two hours free. Records Access Officer | All agencies and municipalities will be required to designate a staff member as their Records Access Officer, a position responsible for assisting requestors with record requests and ensuring compliance with the new law.
New England First Amendment Coalition
Editorials/Columns
Gov. Terry McAuliffe is nothing if not proud of his executive order restoring voting rights to felons en masse. But he is not so proud that he is willing to tell the public whom it actually affects.His administration has refused to release the list of the roughly 206,000 felons whose voting and other rights the order restores. That has created headaches for local voting offices, which are still obliged by law to certify that a person registering to vote is eligible to do so. Yet the governor’s office has refused a Freedom of Information request for the list by the commonwealth’s attorney of Loudoun, claiming that it constitutes the governor’s “working papers” — which are exempt. This is scurrilous, for three reasons. First, that loophole is big enough to hide a herd of elephants. Second, it’s questionable whether the list truly constitutes “working papers” — especially given that the governor’s spokesman, Brian Coy, says the administration will turn over the list to the General Assembly at its next regular session. If so, why wait? Third, even if the list does include working papers, the administration need not invoke the loophole.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
It’s been just three days since Norfolk police officers shot and killed a 43-year-old man inside a home in the Tidewater Gardens neighborhood. Questions need to be answered. People are angry. An investigation is under way. Patience is required. Yet the police chief made several curious decisions on Friday: His department released a key piece of evidence to the public – a photo of the knife allegedly held by the dead man, for instance – but not others. Then, three members of the NAACP were reportedly allowed to view footage from a body camera that one of the officers wore during the incident. The chief refused to release that same tape to the public. Given the fact that Norfolk police have been involved in five fatal shootings so far this year, the city should work quickly to clear the air on the James case. The best way to do that would be to release the recording from the body camera.
Kerry Dougherty, Virginian-Pilot
At one point, when our state Freedom of Information Advisory Council was mulling over the question of when and why elected bodies ought to discuss matters in secret, one local government lobbyist noted that it was important to keep doors closed in order to, as he put it, "keep the stupid in the room." It was a telling comment. A bit disturbing too, for those of us who still have faith that we elect serious men and women to undertake the serious work of governing our communities. The supposed tension between candor and secrecy is at the heart of a major problem the Daily Press has been trying to point out before the Council for about a year now. The issue is the cloak of silence that covers records and discussions as they relate to how well — or how poorly — public servants do their jobs. I don't buy the idea that our state law needs to balance Virginians' right to know what their governments do against our public interest in public officials' honesty and candor. I simply refuse to believe our Virginia political tradition is that honest deliberation and frank discussion needs secrecy. The overwhelming evidence is that what happens behind officials' closed doors is corruption and fraud.
Dave Ress, Daily Press
Breitbart has a recent story noting the probability that some of Hillary Clinton’s FOIA’d emails contain the names of serving CIA officers. Breitbart comes to this conclusion by pointing to the FOIA exemptions identified by the government team charged with redacting portions of the emails. It’s possible to make too much of this. While this story confirms how insouciant Hillary Clinton was about endangering classified information on the poorly secured server, we already knew that. And insouciance isn’t necessarily a knowing violation of law. Secretary Clinton may say that she didn’t know the people named in the messages were CIA officers. Actually, there’s something more troubling and more urgent buried in this story: It could be the FOIA security reviewers themselves who are disclosing CIA identities.
Washington Post
The controversy over leaked legislative emails might be a tempest in a teapot to some, but it goes to the heart of open government and reflects some legislators' disdain for dealing openly with the issues before them. Tennessee Rep. Susan Lynn, R-Mount Juliet, said she was shocked, shocked — as Claude Rains' character said in "Casablanca" — that an email discussion among legislators was leaked and that the email discussion about the leaks also was leaked. She said the leaks were a betrayal of the state Republican Party. On the contrary, the double disclosure might serve notice that the public's business is best served by openness at the moment, not weeks later when the emails are shaped into public policy. Despite its many benefits, the digital age often presents opportunities to dodge public scrutiny, and public officials often are too tempted to take advantage of it. Nevertheless, the solution is the same for both the executive and the legislative branches:The emails they send and receive are public records based on their content, not whether the officials use public or private servers.
Knoxville News Sentinel
