Transparency News 8/14/17

Monday, August 14, 2017



State and Local Stories

Abingdon Town Council, three council members and the town attorney are being accused in court of violating the Freedom of Information Act. Documents filed by a local man in Washington County General District Court allege that Mayor Cathy Lowe, Vice Mayor Rick Humphreys and Councilman Bob Howard met in May to instruct Deb Icenhour, town attorney, to request guidance from a circuit court judge about whether a fellow council member, Cindy Patterson, was fit to remain on the council. The other two council members — Patterson and Wayne Craig — say they were not told about the decision. If the meeting took place, the documents claim that it violated Virginia law because it was not held in public and was not included in meeting minutes.
Herald Courier

The Daily Press recently obtained the cache of documents, released under the Freedom of Information Act, that state auditors sifted through to put together a report on the Peninsula Airport Commission, a review sparked by the newspaper's report about the commission paying off the loan to People Express. The documents include emails, interview notes, invoices, meeting minutes and cellphone text messages. The information contained in those records allowed the Daily Press to put together an extensive timeline of the frantic weeks that led up to the launch of People Express' first flight out of Newport News.
Daily Press

A Development Authority member who owns stock in TowneBank and serves on its regional advisory board said he should not have voted on a project that is seeking a city incentive to build a parking garage. Michael Levinson voted July 18 to approve CityView Two, a $60.5 million development that includes apartments, offices, a hotel and parking garage off Constitution Drive and Bonney Road near Town Center. TowneBank would finance the project. In a 7-0 vote, the Development Authority supported returning $10.2 million in real estate taxes to its developer, Ripley Heatwole Co. Inc., for a privately operated parking garage that would provide public spaces.  Councilman John Moss raised concerns about Levinson’s vote and his connections to TowneBank. When asked about his potential conflict, Levinson said in a statement that he didn’t realize he had a conflict of interest at the time of the vote.
Virginian-Pilot

The Richmond City Council on Friday delayed appointing an interim city auditor after several members expressed frustration that the body had not established a process for filling the post. The council typically does not hold meetings in August, but it called Friday’s special session to consider fast-tracking the appointment of a short-term replacement for Umesh Dalal, who resigned from his post last month amid questions about his job performance and management style. An expedited measure sought to name the interim as Amarilis M. Hernandez, who has worked for the city for 16 years and serves as the deputy city auditor. But six members must approve if the council is to discuss an expedited measure. After returning from a closed session, only seven members remained and five voted to allow the resolution appointing Hernandez to come before the body.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia wants the state’s congressional delegation to stop blocking people from their official and unofficial social media accounts used for official purposes.  In a letter sent Tuesday to all of the state’s congressional representatives and U.S. senators, the ACLU called on the politicians to not block people from their social media accounts simply because they don’t like the content of what the commenter is saying. The civil rights group said its letter to Virginia’s congressional delegation was prompted by a “significant number of complaints from people across the commonwealth” who said they had been blocked from posting, tweeting or commenting on social media sites maintained by members of Congress and other public officials.  “As social media becomes more integral to the political process and public discourse, it becomes incumbent on government officials to recognize that they must not engage in any form of viewpoint censorship in violation of the First Amendment in curating their social media accounts,” said Claire Guthrie Gastanaga, the ACLU of Virginia’s executive director. 
Loudoun Times-Mirror




Editorials/Columns


The revelations just keep coming about the mismanagement of the Peninsula Airport Commission, emerging like an endless string of colorful handkerchiefs from the sleeve of a hack magician. But this was never intended as entertainment, and the only thing made to disappear was millions of dollars in taxpayer funding. The latest tidbit, culled from emails the Daily Press obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request: When state auditors asked to see documentation of the research the commission undertook before its ill-fated deal with the People Express airline, airport attorney Herbert V. Kelly Jr. arranged to throw together a "due diligence" report on the spot. Because executive director Ken Spirito and the airport commission apparently didn't actually have any records of their research.
Daily Press

The website for the National School Boards Association contains an interesting chart titled “How are local school board members selected in your state?” According to the document, which was last updated in June 2009, 30 out of 50 states have elected school boards. What that means is that in three-fifths of U.S. states, the only way to get on a school board is to be elected to the seat by the voters of the district. That, by the way, is how Henry County’s school board operates. In our state, 108 school boards are elected, and just 26 are appointed. If 26 seems like a small number, consider that Virginia is something of an outlier. Virginia actually has more appointed school boards than any other state. Martinsville, of course, is one of those 26. Our city school board is appointed by city council. While school board elections could potentially invite controversy, they are also the most democratic way of selecting a board. Generally speaking, the more democracy that we can inject into our local government procedures, the better.
Martinsville Bulletin