Transparency News, 7/15/2022

Friday
July 15, 2022

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter
Contact us at vcog@opengovva.org

state & local news stories

It was like a game of table tennis at last week’s Rapidan Service Authority (RSA) meeting as the board of members went back and forth regarding a withdrawal and transition agreement for Greene County. Earlier this month, Madison, Orange and Greene county supervisors approved the agreement via separate identical resolutions at each of their respective meetings. The same agreement and resolution were then on the agenda for RSA’s Board of Members. However, even though the three counties had already given their stamp of approval post legal review of each of their county attorneys, not everyone was convinced. To start, the agreement was originally part of the board’s agenda. Board members had to agree to amend the agenda to include it. Then, there was the issue of if the matter should be discussed in open or closed session. “We’re two years into this and this is the first proposed closed session,” RSA Board Member and Greene County Representative Bill Martin said. “I’m not convinced the reason [for the closed session] is legitimate. I don’t know what we’re trying to hide.” A motion was made to have the discussion in closed session, but it failed unanimously.
Orange County Review

stories of national interest

She’s a Donald Trump devotee, so much so that she named her three-legged dog “Ivanka.” He’s an elected official in one of Florida’s bluest counties and not a fan of the former president. Soon, their marriage was kaput. In a press release trumpeting the dissolution, they called it a “Trump Divorce.” High-profile divorces of the rich, famous and influential are a Palm Beach staple. But this breakup, between Lynn Aronberg, a former Miami Dolphins cheerleader, and Dave Aronberg, the Democratic state attorney in Palm Beach County, has taken a decidedly unexpected turn. The “amicable split” — so described in the press release issued in July 2017, just over two years after the nuptials — unraveled when Broward prosecutors filed criminal charges against a millionaire named Glenn Straub. Straub, a developer who owns the Palm Beach Polo and Country Club, is friends with Lynn Aronberg. As part of Straub’s legal defense, his lawyers took a deposition from Lynn Aronberg. Whatever she said under oath during three days of questioning is apparently sensitive. Prosecutors asked the presiding judge to seal the sworn statement, an unusual step. With a few exceptions involving family issues, what happens in the courts is supposed to be open to public scrutiny. After the Miami Herald and the Palm Beach Post learned that the depo had been sealed, they filed a request with Broward Circuit Judge Tim Bailey to have it unsealed. A hearing was held Wednesday on the matter. No decision was rendered.
McClatchy DC
 

editorials & columns

Unpopular Supreme Court rulings, rollbacks of federal voter protections and Senate gridlock can make it feel as if representative democracy is slipping out of reach. Yet on the local level, a sturdy instrument of democracy is commonly overlooked. Public meetings can be powerful ways to influence local government decisions that directly affect our lives. The problem is, with so few reporters now covering city hall, those decisions are often made with no one watching. At our nonprofit civic media organization, City Bureau, we’ve found that local residents can cover public meetings effectively, and it can transform both government behavior and the citizens themselves. It’s a model that’s ready to scale across the country. It’s time we reconnect with local democracy, and there are public spaces already set up for this in nearly every municipality in America. Every day, elected and appointed officials host more than 1,500 public meetings, by conservative estimate. They cover everything from police accountability and local school curriculums to mosquito abatement plans and utility rates. As one researcher put it, these meetings are “the most commonly used, frequently criticized, yet least understood methods of public participation.” And yet most of these meetings take place with nobody from the media present. So for the last four years, City Bureau has been training and paying everyday citizens to attend and take notes at public meetings. These Documenters have attended more than 2,800 public meetings in our hometown of Chicago and with our partner sites in Detroit, Cleveland and Minneapolis.
Darryl Holliday, Governing