Transparency News 8/16/16

 

WJHL

A month ago, Richmond city administrators were hopeful they were within a week of completing their already long-overdue financial report for fiscal year 2015. On Monday, they announced yet another setback, this time in the form of a medical emergency. The city’s contact at its outside auditor, Grant Thornton LLP, suffered a medical emergency and as of Friday had to be replaced with a new contact. That new contact, Angela Dunlap, told the City Council she would need to review much of the work that had already been done before she could sign off on the document. The city is one of three localities that hasn’t yet filed its 2015 report with the state auditor of public accounts. The other overdue localities are Hopewell and Manassas Park.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

University of Virginia officials pushed back Monday against allegations surrounding the Strategic Investment Fund. Rector William H. Goodwin Jr. led a discussion on the $2.3 billion fund on Monday afternoon, the second day of the Board of Visitors’ annual retreat. Hours before the meeting, Gov. Terry McAuliffe also weighed in on the issue. During an interview on Lynchburg talk station WIQO, McAuliffe told host Brian Weigand that he thinks UVa should use the money to keep tuition “as low as possible.” Many state officials were surprised to learn the university had this large pool of money, McAuliffe said. While the university may not have acted unethically, he said it is important to discuss the issue in public, he told Weigand. “This is a state institution,” McAuliffe said. “We should know about every penny that goes on there.”
Daily Progress

The Danville Public Library has spent the past two years purging its collection of worn, duplicate and rarely checked-out books. That hasn’t prevented the library’s director from receiving complaints from at least one resident convinced that books on the Confederacy are being targeted for removal. Residents have also criticized the library’s actions on Facebook. Danville Public Library Director Joe Zappacosta said the library has not set out to remove books on the Civil War and the Confederacy. Library staff has been removing books on all subjects for at least two years — a routine practice for libraries everywhere, Zappacosta said. It’s only recently that employees have started weeding out the section of the library that includes books on the Confederacy, he said. A lot of the library’s books on the Civil War are in the genealogy room, where patrons can research and trace their ancestry, Zappacosta said. There has been no plan to move those books, he said.
Register & Bee

Getting information about road closures in Prince William County just got easier. The county’s Geographic Information System division worked with the Public Safety Communications Center to create an online application so people can see road closures in the county in real time. The application shows current incidents as well as planned road closures. In addition to the map, the application allows users to sign up for notifications about road closures via text or email through the Prince William Community Alert Network.
Inside NOVA

A Franklin man has brought suit against the Southampton County Board of Supervisors and its individual members in response to their rezoning of the hotly debated Camp Parkway project. Dr. Aurelius W. Brantley of Clay Street claims they acted arbitrarily and capriciously in amending the County’s comprehensive plan to allow manufacturing development in a residential section of that area. At its May 12th public hearing, the Southampton County Planning Commission recommended 8-1 that the supervisors should deny the rezoning. But on July 5, the Board of Supervisors voted 6-1 to allow rezoning from A-2 (agriculture) and R-1 (residential) to CM-1 (conditional limited industrial); Dr. Alan Edwards for the Jerusalem District, who’s also on Planning, voted no at the July meeting. Edwards stated, “There was a quasi-vote in this meeting. There was a consensus in the meeting and I was there.” He said on another day: “The improper activity I was referring to was [the FSEDI] asking the Board of Supervisors to support the project in closed session when we didn’t really know anything about it.” County Attorney Richard Railey and Franklin District supervisor Barry Porter both denied any impropriety took place in closed session. 
Tidewater News



National Stories
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The Supreme Judicial Court has tentatively approved a new slate of rules for accessing Massachusetts court records, including partially restoring access to basic criminal court information online. Under the new rules, the courts will gradually start allowing the general public to look up basic docket information online for almost all criminal cases — such as the status of the case and list of upcoming hearings — by entering the docket number for each case; users will not be able to look up criminal cases by defendant name online. The courts already allow the general public to look up basic information on most civil cases on the Internet. The move comes a month after the courts abruptly blocked lawyers and journalists from accessing online data about criminal cases (except for cases where lawyers had entered an official court appearance), sparking an outcry from reporters, prosecutors, attorneys, and clerks. The courts said they made the move because they were concerned that certain organizations were systematically downloading civil case information (and could have potentially downloaded criminal data as well). But the courts declined to name the organizations downloading the data, provide more details about how they were misusing the information, or fully explain how it caused any harm.
Boston Globe

Pennsylvania State Attorney General Kathleen Kane has been found guilty of perjury and obstruction, prompting renewed calls for her resignation. Kane, a Democrat elected in 2012, had denied leaking confidential information about grand jury deliberations to the media and then attempting to cover it up, in an effort to harm her predecessor. The criminal charges were filed against Kane last August. They alleged that Kane acted on anger about a local newspaper article that accused her of dropping an investigation into politicians accepting bribes. To get back at her predecessors, the complaint said Kane leaked sealed, confidential grand jury documents to the media and then lied under oath.
CNN