Transparency News 7/2/13

The updated full text of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act is on VCOG's website. Changes effective July 1 are italicized.
FOIA on VCOG

Mandatory training for third-party groups seeking to register voters in Virginia will begin this week. In its last session, the General Assembly passed a law requiring training for individuals or groups obtaining 25 or more voter registration applications from the State Board of Elections or local voter registration office. The law is effective Monday. The training covers topics including best practices for completion of voter registration applications, maintaining the integrity of the voter registration process, prohibited activities, deadlines for submission of completed applications and law protecting applicant privacy.
Washington Post

Virginia has released a list of 10 candidate projects for public-private partnerships.  The Office of Transportation Public-Private Partnerships (OTP3) is seeking input on its Draft 2013 Virginia PPTA Pipeline, which lists candidate and conceptual projects. For candidate projects, enough work has been done to move them through the screening process so that an informed procurement process can be made. Conceptual projects require additional business and financial analysis before they can move to the screening process for consideration.
Virginia Business

During his two-year state-salaried tenure at Virginia's Executive Mansion, chef Todd Schneider was paid to cook breakfast, lunch and dinner for Gov. Bob McDonnell and the first family. Instead, he ended up as the first family's "personal shopper and private caterer" – called upon to perform duties "far beyond the scope" of his employment for which he was not paid, according to a filing by Schneider's lawyers in the embezzlement case against him.
Times-Dispatch

A Virginia State Police trooper is facing criminal charges accusing her of abusing a police database and has been placed on unpaid leave, state police said Monday. In May, state police began investigating Crystal Gail Ramsey, a 31-year-old who patrolled Virginia Beach and Norfolk, after receiving a complaint regarding her use of the Virginia Criminal Information Network, according to a police statement. The network is a database that contains information such as arrest and Department of Motor Vehicles records.
Virginian-Pilot

Two supervisors criticized Pittsylvania County Board Chairman Marshall Ecker’s June 19 State of the County address during the board of supervisors’ meeting Monday night in Chatham. Westover Supervisor Coy Harville and Dan River Supervisor James Snead, speaking during the board announcements at the end of the meeting, expressed disappointment with Ecker’s address. During the speech given at the Danville Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce’s Business at Breakfast in Chatham, Ecker said the county was just “treading water,” after the board dissolved its economic development office in March. Ecker and Harville exchanged words again a few minutes later into the meeting, with Ecker telling Harville to be quiet. “Get your act together,” Harville said to Ecker.
Register & Bee

An accidental keystroke has thrown off Prince William County’s budget by $5 million, meaning county leaders will need to dig for savings during the spending year that began Monday, Prince William County officials announced late in the day. Budget officials realized on June 24 that they did not have enough money to pay for expected expenditures, said Jason Grant, a county spokesman. The error occurred when a county budget official used the wrong numbers to project revenues for the 2013-2014 spending year. Budget officials and internal auditors will address the issue on July 16 with the Board of County Supervisors.
Washington Post

National Stories

The U.S. Postal Service's ZIP code system turns 50 on Monday, harkening back to a time when those five digits were the side effect of the tech behind a quickly evolving communications industry. The service introduced the ZIP code, or Zone Improvement Plan, in 1963 as "five trailblazing numbers" that "launched every piece of mail with space-age speed and precision," according to a cheesy 1960s public service announcement video that encouraged people to use ZIP codes while addressing mail.
CNET News

Nearing the end of their case, prosecutors in Fort Meade on Monday tried to prove one of the gravest charges against Pfc. Bradley Manning: that the Army private, who gave WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of diplomatic and military documents, aided the enemy. The government argued that members of Al Qaeda had sought information made available online by the antisecrecy group after Private Manning’s leak, the largest disclosure of confidential materials in American history.
New York Times

The Texas Supreme Court reinstated a defamation suit against an Austin television station that aired a broadcast about a local physician, concluding there were factual issues in the case best left for a jury to decide. The decision rejects an argument that Texas media parties have long relied upon, that "a media defendant’s reporting of third-party allegations is substantially true if it accurately reports the allegations — even if the allegations themselves are false." The court said that it had not created such a rule in an earlier case, but instead had "reaffirmed that one must prove the substantial truth of the gist of a broadcast to avail oneself of the truth defense." The case concerned a defamation lawsuit filed by Dr. Byron Neely against CBS affiliate KEYE-TV and investigative reporter Nanci Wilson. The television news station aired a seven-minute report in 2004 that indicated Neely was investigated by the Texas Medical Board and “found Neely had a history of hand tremors and that between 1999 and 2002, Dr. Neely was writing prescriptions, not only for his patients but for himself as well," according to the opinion.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Every night, while millions of Americans are fast asleep, clocks and wristwatches across the country wake up and lock on to a radio signal beamed from the base of the Rocky Mountains. The signal contains a message that keeps the devices on time, helping to make sure their owners keep to their schedules and aren’t late for work the next day. The broadcast comes from WWVB, a station run by the National Institute for Standards and Technology. WWVB marks half a century as the nation’s official time broadcaster on July 5. Together with its sister station, WWV, which is about to hit 90 years in service, NIST radio has been an invisible piece of American infrastructure that has advanced industries from entertainment to telecommunications. (WWV’s broadcast includes a wider range of information, including maritime weather warnings and solar storm alerts).
Wired

Editorials/Columns

Roanoke Times: The Virginia Coalition for Open Government is working to endow a student internship for sessions of the General Assembly to give deserving scholars a chance to learn about the state legislative process. Fittingly, the internship will celebrate the legacy of former Del. Clifton “Chip” Woodrum of Roanoke, who died earlier this year. Woodrum took the lead in modernizing Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act in the late 1990s and in creating and sustaining an advisory council that still serves as the state government’s sunshine office.

Daily Press: As we've noted before, we have serious concerns about the new law that says concealed weapons permits are no longer public information. This isn't a Second Amendment issue; it's not about whether citizens have the right to own or carry guns. As a general rule, if the government sees fit to collect information about its citizens, then that information should be available for public inspection unless there is a very compelling privacy reason against it. Protecting victims of domestic violence is a valid reason. Protecting the privacy of individuals who want to walk in our midst with a concealed weapon is not.