Transparency News 8/11/16

Thursday, August 11, 2016


State and Local Stories

The state released a partial list Wednesday evening of the felons whose voting rights Gov. Terry McAuliffe has tried to restore. This list, available through the Virginia Department of Elections website, has 12,832 entries, all tied to people who registered to vote following McAuliffe's mass restoration order in April. That order initially affected more than 200,000 people, but only some followed up by registering to vote for the November general elections. A Virginia State Supreme Court decision, borne from a lawsuit filed by Republican General Assembly members, has since voided McAuliffe's mass order, removing the nearly 13,000 people who had registered from state voting rolls. It was this cancellation that required the state to release names under the National Voter Registration Act, Virginia Department of Elections Commissioner Edgardo Cortés said. This federal law is meant to keep officials from removing people from the voting rolls in secret.
Daily Press

Citizens will no longer have to sit through an entire city council meeting to get their three minutes to address the Hampton City Council, but they'll still have to endure some of the civic process to make their voices heard. The City Council's first move at Wednesday night's meeting was to break from the city's standard meeting setup to move the citizens' comment period to the middle of the meeting — after public hearings but before broader discussion items. The citizens' comment period has ping-ponged back and forth several times in the last few years. It was moved to the beginning early in 2010, according to city officials, and was moved back to the end in September 2014. The placement has been at issue with some since it was changed in 2014.
Daily Press

The Petersburg City Council is moving forward without public input in their search for a new city manager, discarding a previous plan to appoint a member of the public to a panel tasked with reviewing applications. In the application process for the city’s top position that the council approved May 17, the body had agreed to vote to “select one citizen to be a member of the interview and selection process.” But while the city manager position was advertised beginning May 29, no such advertisement was published for the position on the review panel. And in a special meeting last week, the council approved a motion to remove all public input from the review process, a break from the city’s previous practice of selecting residents for boards and committees.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

Grumbling spread through the region last year after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission held only two public meetings in Virginia tied to the commission’s early review of the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline project. Regional officials and pipeline opponents hope that pattern won’t repeat now that FERC is on the cusp of releasing a draft environmental impact statement for the proposed natural gas transmission pipeline. An Aug. 8 letter from U.S. Reps. Morgan Griffith, Bob Goodlatte and Robert Hurt, all Republicans, asks the commission to “hold multiple public meetings in communities in Virginia” along the pipeline route after the release of the draft environmental impact statement. The letter noted, “Given the size and significance of this project, and the importance of accurately addressing all environmental concerns, it is imperative that affected communities along the path of the proposed pipeline be granted ample opportunity to evaluate the draft EIS, provide substantive input, voice their opinions and solicit feedback from FERC.”
Roanoke Times

The Fairfax City Council has announced a special meeting date to discuss the date of a special election needed to choose a new mayor, after Mayor Richard Scott Silverthorne was arrested on drug distribution charges last week. Silverthorne announced this week that he will resign effective noon Thursday, Aug. 11. The city council held a special meeting to hold a closed session to discuss legal matters Tuesday. After the meeting, the council announced they will hold a special meeting at 7 p.m. Aug. 16 in the City Hall Annex, Room 100 “to receive public comment, and to discuss and consider a date of a special election for the purpose of filling the position of mayor,” city officials said in a news release.
Inside NOVA


National Stories

The conservative commentator Glenn Beck must reveal the names of confidential sources he used in reports alleging that a Saudi Arabian student injured in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing was "the money man" who funded the attack, a federal judge ruled. In her decision on Tuesday, Chief Judge Patti Saris of the U.S. District Court in Boston also rejected Beck's latest effort to dismiss Abdulrahman Alharbi's defamation case against him and TheBlaze network, which broadcasts his radio show. Beck repeatedly linked Alharbi to the April 15, 2013 bombing on his radio show, including that he had been "tagged" as a "proven terrorist," and continued doing so after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano cleared the student in congressional testimony. "The only way to verify or confirm what the confidential sources told the defendants would be to speak with the sources themselves," Saris wrote in a 61-page decision. Beck never spoke with the sources, she added.
Reuters

A former aide to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said the governor lied about his knowledge of his administration’s involvement in the George Washington Bridge lane closures, according to a new court filing. Christine Renna, who worked under deputy chief of staff Bridget Anne Kelly, texted: “Are you listening? He just flat out lied about senior staff and (former deputy chief of staff Bill) Stepien not being involved.” She added that if emails were uncovered in court discovery, “it could be bad.”
USA Today

An advocacy group for government transparency on Tuesday sued the University of Washington Board of Regents, contending the board conducted a “sham public process” and violated the state’s open-meetings law last October by secretly picking the university’s president. In its lawsuit, the Washington Coalition for Open Government (WCOG) cited various email exchanges among university officials, selection-committee members and others that indicate the regents had secretly selected Ana Mari Cauce before taking a public vote. “The public saw only a predetermined ‘vote’ that was literally scripted in advance and conducted six days after the real decision, concealing any debate about filling one of the state’s highest-paid and most important jobs,” Katherine George, an attorney representing WCOG, wrote in the legal complaint.
Seattle Times


Editorials/Columns

The disagreement over the University of Virginia’s Strategic Investment Fund has produced a reversal of roles for some of the key players in the dispute. The person leveling accusations that the fund was established in a secretive manner is Helen Dragas, the former rector previously known for her secretive manner when she attempted to oust U.Va. president Teresa A. Sullivan in 2012. She was not successful, but since then, she’s become a transparency advocate and has accused fellow board of visitors’ members of being less than transparent. The person defending the fund is the current rector, William H. Goodwin Jr., who insists the board follows all open-government standards and the state’s Freedom of Information Act. We are reminded that Goodwin has been a critic of FOIA laws, calling them a “deterrent” to efficient government. He even warned new board members that they should avoid using email “unless you want it to be on the front page.” The other players in this are a handful of state Senate and House members. These folks are often accused of rubber-stamping any bills that close government records to the public. Now, they are the accusers, claiming UVa. officials are refusing to release certain records they want about the fund.
Free Lance-Star

Here on the Peninsula, virtually every meeting of elected city councils, county supervisors and school boards includes lengthy closed sessions. All too often, across the state, elected officials opt to distrust their own ability to speak candidly about public issues without embarrassment, and close the doors to their discussions. All too often, elected officials distrust the ability of the public to thoughtfully listen to discussion of how their governments are run and policies their governments would like to follow. When this happens, government officials forget something pretty simple. Distrust breeds distrust.
Daily Press

What has resulted is a war of words in an ongoing public relations battle, with well-crafted op-eds from the university’s public relations machine joined by a growing chorus of calls for accountability from members of the Virginia General Assembly. As the Post noted, "Sen. William DeSteph Jr., R-Virginia Beach, and 10 other legislators wrote to U.Va.’s president and rector on Monday that they want far more comprehensive information" than what the university has so far released. Dated August 8, the letter was addressed to current Board of Visitors Rector William Goodwin and U.Va. President Teresa Sullivan.  And, its tone is moving past collegial. DeSteph and his co-signers wrote with their concerns about U.Va.’s "less than adequate response" to their initial inquiry in the matter, and requested a more detailed report without material exempted under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, as was the case in the beginning. Rather, the legislators reminded U.Va. officials that theirs is a "legislative request" to which FOIA exemptions do not apply, pointing to the Code of Virginia, which says the university is "at all times subject to the control of the General Assembly." They requested a response by August 12, so we will see what the next chapter brings later this week. 
Winchester Star

At a time when there seems to be more agreement among the electorate than among their elected officials, it's worth asking whether citizens themselves could do a better job -- whether they could restore confidence in public governance. Is it time to give more authority to citizens to make policy? In fact, some states and local governments are already moving to cede more authority to their citizens. In Virginia, for example, the General Assembly intervened in a regional governance failure in 2011 when lawmakers installed citizens as policymakers alongside elected representation on the Transportation District Commission of Hampton Roads, the board of the regional transit provider in the Norfolk-Virginia Beach metro area. I was among the first appointees, and in 2015 was the first citizen appointee to be elected board chair.
James Toscano, Governing