Transparency News, 7/8/2022

Friday
July 8, 2022

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state & local news stories

The FOIA Council announced a series of webinars and training for FOIA officers, elected officials and the public. They are free.
Register here and click on each topic for a list of dates. There are 4 webinars scheduled for each topic.

When Virginia Attorney General Attorney General Jason S. Miyares launched an investigation into Loudoun County Public Schools allegedly covering up two sexual assaults of students, he said the public had a right to know what happened. Nonetheless, Miyares is seeking to bar the public from attending a court hearing on Monday regarding the school district’s efforts to stop a special grand jury from meeting about the investigation. “The requirements of Virginia [law] and a functioning special grand jury system mandate a closed hearing and sealed transcript,” Thomas J. Sanford, an assistant attorney general, wrote in a motion filed this week in Loudoun Circuit Court to close Monday’s hearing. “Public access to the July 11 hearing would play a negative role, not a positive one, with respect to the functioning of the special grand jury.” In the motion, Sanford cited legal precedents that since grand jury proceedings are private, there is no First Amendment right to access to material related to the proceedings. He said “sealed and secret grand jury material will be inextricably interwoven into the hearing.”
Loudoun Times-Mirror

Carrollton resident Katie Carter Lemon has filed a lawsuit against Isle of Wight County’s School Board, contending the board’s March 10 vote to amend now-retired Superintendent Dr. Jim Thornton’s contract violated Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act. Lemon filed the suit on June 28 through her Virginia Beach-based attorney, Kevin Martingayle. It asks that the county’s Circuit Court issue an order “declaring void” the March 10 contract amendments that allowed Thornton to retire a year early. Prior to the amendments, Thornton’s contract had specified he would remain superintendent through the end of the 2022-23 school year. The School Board initially voted at its March 10 meeting to approve a “proposed amendment” to Thornton’s contract “as discussed in closed session.” When School Board Attorney Pakapon “Pak” Phinyowattanachip advised that to comply with Virginia’s open records laws, the board would need to state publicly what had changed, Chairwoman Denise Tynes called a roughly 10-minute recess. When the board reconvened and took a new vote, Vice Chairman Michael Cunningham read into the record that the board had “agreed to honor” Thornton’s “request to be released from his contract, effective June 30, 2022, in order to retire.” “Supposedly, there was no business conducted by the Board during the recess because there was no motion to go into a closed meeting, nor any certification of any closed meeting if one took place,” Lemon’s lawsuit states. “From the circumstances, however, it appears that additional discussions and decisions regarding the superintendent’s proposed amended contract took place during the ‘recess.’”
The Smithfield Times

The Richmond Police Department has refused to share crucial evidence to verify its claim that a mass shooting was planned on Independence Day. The arrests made in connection to the reported plot have turned into an international incident. One day after the city's police chief said a "hero citizen" called officers about a conversation overheard about the plan for violence, a spokesperson and attorney for the department declined 8News' request to listen to any possible audio of the call and to physically see the firearms police said were seized. "Any audio records related to this incident will not be released or available for review at this time because all records related to this incident are part of an ongoing criminal investigation or proceeding," read a statement from the police department's legal office in response to 8News' Freedom of Information Act request.
WRIC

The executive board of the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) publicly censured Amherst County Administrator Dean Rodgers during a June 11 meeting, stating in a news release issued Thursday it believes he violated its ethics code on political neutrality. ICMA’s ethic code’s states members are to refrain from all political activities, which undermine public confidence in the local government management profession, and refrain from participation in the "election of members of the employing legislative body."  The news release said Rodgers voluntarily attended the 2020 national and Virginia Libertarian conventions and sought appointment to the Virginia Redistricting Commission, which develops maps for Virginia’s state legislative districts and districts for the U.S. House of Representatives. ICMA’s board concluded Rodgers’ conduct constituted political activity “that undermines public confidence in the local government management profession” and determined such conduct violated the code, according to the release. In a phone interview Thursday, Rodgers denied violating the code and said he recently resigned from the group as a result of that accusation. Rodgers said he is neither Democrat nor Republican and, in his view, he wasn’t violating any rules on being politically neutral. “If that’s what you say your rules say, you need to rewrite them,” Rodgers said.
Amherst New Era-Progress