Transparency News, 8/11/21

With local government meetings around the commonwealth becoming more and more heated, as was the case at the Tuesday, Aug. 3, Buckingham County School Board Meeting, officials are warning the increased discord during these gatherings could be creating a disconnect between public bodies and the community members they serve. At the School Board’s Tuesday night meeting, anger and frustration were in the air as numerous parents and members of the public expressed their discontent with the possibility of students being required to mask up for the new school year. When the School Board ultimately voted to require face coverings, members of the public began yelling and arguing, and many stormed out of the room. Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, said Friday, Aug. 6, meetings like the one held Tuesday, Aug. 3, are currently having a negative impact on both the ability of governments to do their business and the public’s ability to express its opinions on important issues.
Farmville Herald

Antipathy among Loudoun County parents raged on during the Aug. 10 School Board meeting, as more than one hundred people signed up to address the board ahead of its vote on the controversial policy for transgender protections, which was ultimately delayed to Wednesday. After the unruly crowd resulted in the public being expelled during the board’s June 22 meeting, the division imposed new access rules Tuesday night. Members of the public lined up outside the schools administration building before being allowed inside in small groups to deliver their comments. There was no audience for the public comment session. The board listened to virtual comments before taking comments from people physically present, enraging some who waited outside for hours through a thunderstorm before getting a chance to address the board.
LoudounNow

For more than 20 years, ABL Management, Inc., worked as the food vendor for Norfolk’s city jail. In exchange for those contracts, the company and its CEO, John Appleton, gave then-Norfolk Sheriff Bob McCabe gifts, trips, free catering and campaign contributions, Appleton testified Tuesday in U.S. District Court. The contracts and bidding process prohibit public officials from soliciting or receiving gifts from vendors — and vendors from giving them. But Appleton said both he and McCabe violated those rules. He and McCabe had a different agreement, Appleton said: “I scratch your back, you scratch mine.”
The Virginian-Pilot

Front Royal Town Council could make it more difficult for members to bring matters up for a vote, including local laws. The proposal to change how the council puts items on meeting agendas comes shortly after members voted down an ordinance that would have prohibited private employers from mandating COVID-19 vaccinations for workers as a condition of employment. Town Code allowed the council to put the matter on the July 27 meeting agenda with only the support of two members after months of debate and no endorsement from the rest of the panel. Town Attorney Douglas Napier advised members on several occasions that Front Royal could not enforce the ordinance. Mayor Christopher W. Holloway proposes changing the code section to require that an item receive the support of at least a majority of the council members to make it on a meeting agenda. The mayor could vote in the event of a split. The town must hold a public hearing on the proposed code change.
The Northern Virginia Daily

 

In those days [the mid-1990s], legislators habitually told journalists who were lobbying a FOIA issue that they were the only people who cared about FOIA, that it had been enacted just for press access. Frosty and others, notably VPA Executive Director Ginger Stanley, knew otherwise. The general public has always relied on FOIA even more heavily than have working journalists, but legislators weren’t getting that message, or preferred to ignore it. Changing that misperception became Frosty Landon’s personal mission in late life. He tore into the project with a zeal that would be the envy of many an evangelist. He worked closely with the Press Association, the Virginia Association of Broadcasters and the heads of Virginia’s largest newspaper and broadcast groups to create what would become an umbrella organization that would champion FOIA causes, not for journalists, but for all Virginians. He even obtained the blessing and guidance of two former governors, one a Republican and one a Democrat. In 1996, the Virginia Coalition for Open Government was created. Its initial 65 members included newspapers, broadcasters, the Virginia Library Association, schools of journalism across the commonwealth and most of the state’s public broadcast organizations. That broad base was a direct result of Frosty Landon’s personal appeal on behalf of the project.
John Edwards, The Smithfield Times
And on VCOG's website

Virginia is suffering through two outbreaks. One is another outbreak of COVID-19. The other outbreak we’re seeing is an outbreak of secrecy. The secrecy outbreak has infected both political parties in Virginia, just in different ways. First, the Democrats who control the General Assembly decided that they will go about filling an unusually large number of court vacancies in secrecy. It’s certainly true that the selection of judges has always been rather, umm, opaque, shall we say? It’s also always been a prized prerogative of the majority party in Richmond, which is the status Democrats now enjoy. Our question is not what precedent dictates, but what good government dictates.
The Roanoke Times

Seeking to create jobs and help their local economies climb out of the pandemic recession, state and local officials are raising the ante on subsidies to big corporations. But if history is any guide, ever-increasing tax breaks and other economic development incentives will likely lead to slower — not faster — growth. Given that state and local governments have already been wasting $95 billion every year in an economic race to the bottom, more subsidies will just dig the hole deeper. Take New Jersey, for example. It made national headlines when its previous state subsidy program collapsed in corruption and scandal, but the state recently replaced it with an even larger $14 billion program. And this spring North Carolina announced its largest-ever subsidy: $865 million in its successful bid for Apple’s first East Coast research and development center and the 3,000 new jobs the company promises to bring. Adding thousands of local jobs is great news, but why pay Apple to do something it was probably going to do anyway? It’s a lesson for anyone who values good government over political grandstanding. Adding insult to injury, academic research finds that only one in eight subsidies are likely to change a company’s location or expansion decision. That means almost 90 percent are a complete waste of money. 
Michael Farren, Governing