Transparency News 7/5/13

 

Friday, July 5, 2013

  State and Local Stories

 

A Republican opponent of a proposed road that would connect Loudoun and Prince William counties said Wednesday that Loudoun County Board Chairman Scott York (R) should resign from his role on a regional transportation body over “threatening” comments he made to the road’s detractors. Del. Timothy D. Hugo (R), who represents parts of Fairfax and Prince William, made the comments on Bruce DePuyt’s “NewsTalk” on Channel 8 as part of a debate over the proposed Bi-County Parkway, which would connect I-66 in Prince William with Route 50 in Loudoun. York’s message to the council was “schoolyard bullying,” Hugo said Wednesday. “I don’t think that’s proper. I say it’s threatening people.
Washington Post

A social media post has fueled a squabble between two local attorneys, leading to a defamation lawsuit and contributing to a crackdown on electronics use in the city's General District Court. At issue is whether a Facebook post of a photo taken inside a courtroom this year was a harmless joke or a damaging misrepresentation, according to the lawsuit and response, filed in Circuit Court this spring. The case also highlights the issues that courts must weigh in deciding whether to allow cellphones and other electronics inside and what limits to put on their use.
Virginian-Pilot

The Fieldale Sanitary District Board is not in compliance with certain state requirements for an audit. Some fear that as a result, Fieldale residents may have to help pay for years worth of audits, while others say it may show why some state laws should be changed. The state auditor notified the Fieldale board that it is out of compliance for not submitting the annual audit within three months after the Dec. 31 end of its fiscal year. The report would have been submitted to the Auditor of Public Accounts, according to a June 7 letter from Martha S. Mavredes, state auditor of public accounts.
Mavredes said in an email the issue arose after her office “received an inquiry from a citizen, Benjamin C. Shires, who asked whether or not there had been an audit and if not, who was responsible for compliance with the audit requirement.”
Martinsville Bulletin

A Richmond Circuit Court judge on Wednesday refused to compel Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and one of his assistants to testify in the embezzlement case against Todd Schneider, former chef at the Executive Mansion.
Times-Dispatch

Republican Del. Bob Marshall plans to carry legislation next year to toughen state laws on reporting political gifts to family members of public officials, a move that appears motivated by the ongoing gift controversy swirling around Gov. Bob McDonnell. Marshall said Wednesday that his draft legislation would require adult family members of elected officials and certain state employees to report any gift of $100 or more from anyone who does business with the state.
Virginian-Pilot

Where in Charlottesville do people feel happiest? Where do they go to be alone? Where are the city’s best fruit trees, biggest potholes and strongest smells? These are a few of the questions The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative hopes residents will answer — and visually document — in a community mapping project that begins today. “We’re going to take a snapshot of the city,” said Matthew Slaats, director of The Bridge PAI. “The census is a top-down, federal approach to mapping a place. This is about the individual perspective — what someone sees, smells and feels as they’re walking down their neighborhood street.”
Charlottesville Tomorrow

A feisty discussion over abstaining from votes led to a heated exchange during Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors’ Monday meeting. Westover District Supervisor Coy Harville suggested the county force supervisors to vote unless they have a clear conflict of interest, according to state law. Harville said several supervisors are ducking votes by abstaining without a valid conflict. “We need to get serious and get down to business,” Harville said. The veteran supervisor took issue with Chairman and Staunton River District Supervisor Marshall Ecker, who asked him to explain his stance. “I’m not here to argue,” Harville said. Harville challenged Ecker to adjourn the meeting and let the two talk outside.
Star-Tribune

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has filed a friend-of-the-court brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review an appeals court decision that could allow many records detailing the interactions between government and third-party contractors to be shielded from public disclosure under the federal Freedom of Information Act . The Reporters Committee specifically asks the Court to reject a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., (4th Cir.) that interpreted FOIA Exemption 5 – which allows the government to withhold privileged internal agency records – to be broadly applied to a government contractor that can show it has a “common interest” with the government in a particular matter. The first step in any Exemption 5 analysis under FOIA requires that the records at issue be inter- or intra-agency records, a standard that generally cannot be met by a third party, the petition noted.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Alexandria officials hit the brakes on a plan to require local bike shops to log every bicycle sale with police just weeks after the department floated the idea. As updates to the decades-old bicycle ordinance headed to city council for final approval, police spokesman Jamie Bartlett told the Times that he requested city officials keep an unenforced provision requiring bike dealers to register the details of every transaction. The information that shops turned over to the authorities — which included the name and address of the buyer as well — would be recorded in a department database in the future. The idea, Bartlett said, was to make it easier for police to track and recover stolen pedal-powered rides. But the proposal chafed bicycle sellers and cycling advocates, who said such a registry would be onerous. They argued the existing — and voluntary — National Bike Registry is far more effective than a local database.
Alexandria Times

National Stories

The U.S. Department of State Bureau of International Information Programs spent $630,000 on two Facebook campaigns in 2011 and 2012 to generate "likes" for its Facebook Pages, according to an inspection report issued by the Office of the Inspector General and published by the Washington Examiner. The bureau's Facebook advertising efforts successfully exposed four Facebook Pages to millions of people, but failed to generate meaningful engagement in the form of "likes," comments, or shares for status updates.
CNET News

In an interview with USA TODAY's Capital Download, national archivist David Ferriero discusses the power of documents, from the founders' diaries to the secret project to build a flying saucer.
USA Today

A Chicago city official who revealed the insurance information of a detective once targeted for a gang hit should not face a lawsuit, a federal judge ruled. Domenic Capelluti has been a detective with the Major Crimes Task Force in Lake County, Illinois, for 17 years. After he arrested gang member Abdul Love for intent to sell cocaine in 2005, Love hired a hit man to kill Capelluti for $45,000. Although the assassination attempt was discovered, and Love was convicted for solicitation of murder for hire, Capelluti sold his house and his cars, rented a P.O. box, and changed his routine to protect himself and his family from any future plots. Amy Strege, assistant corporation counsel for the city of Waukegan, nevertheless made Capelluti's information available while complying with a request she received under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from Chicago Tribune reporter Dan Hinkle in 2011.
Courthouse News Service

Anti-NSA protesters took to the streets in cities across the United States on Thursday, using the Independence Day holiday to call attention to recent disclosures about the U.S. government's telephone and Internet surveillance programs. The movement, called "Restore the Fourth," says the government programs such as Prism violate the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures without warrants. Specifically, it wants the National Security Agency's surveillance programs shut down.
CNN

East Ramapo, N.Y., school board attorney tells woman to shut up during board meeting, drops f-bombs in the parking lot and threatens locality’s videographer.
CNN

Editorials/Columns

Washington Times: Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate for Virginia governor, will kick off Science Week with Michael Mann. Of all the climate scientists to drag into the politics of global warming and climate change, one could hardly do worse than Mr. Mann.
Mr. Mann is the real denier in the global-warming controversy. He is denying the taxpayers who funded his “work” at the University of Virginia (UVa.) from seeing that “work.” To add insult to injury, UVa. has spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars fighting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for release of the taxpayer-funded “global-warming research” activities of Mr. Mann and his associates at the university. The malfeasance of the UVa. administration in keeping the public, which paid for this Mann activity, from seeing this “work” is unconscionable.