Transparency News 8/17/16

 

The Sunlight Foundation is seeking contact information for experts in several aspects of integrity and good-government. If you know of someone who would serve as a good contact point for these areas, you can fill out this online form.

• FOI/Access to Public Information
• Campaign Finance
• Electoral Oversight
• Executive Accountability
• Legislative Accountability
• Judicial Accountability
• Budget Processes
• State Civil Service Management
• Procurement
• Internal Auditing
• Lobbying
• Ethics Enforcement
• State Pension Fund Management

The Charlottesville City Council chose to temporarily suspend their meeting Monday evening after an animated public comment period began to overwhelm the council. After weeks of stifling hot discomfort at the 105-room Crescent Halls low-income apartment complex, located on Monticello Avenue across from the Ix Art Park, frustrated residents vented their frustrations about the unbearable heat and the building’s malfunctioning air conditioning system to the council. City Manger Maurice Jones and councilors attempted to reassure the two dozen or so Crescent Halls residents and supporters who visited the council Monday, but they ultimately failed to placate them as tensions boiled. Adding to the tension Monday was attorney Jeffrey Fogel, who argued that city police officers are continuing to racially profile African American residents and disproportionately pull them over or stop them in the street. According to a FOIA request that Fogel filed in April, 74 of the 110 individuals who were stopped on “reasonable suspicion of criminal activity” in 2015 were black. Of those 74, fewer than 20 were arrested or issued a summons. Fogel and several other people continued to voice their displeasure with the council, prompting the mayor to suspend the meeting for approximately five minutes. The mayor did not request that audio and video of the meeting be turned off, but the city’s archived video does not show what transpired afterward. Arguments ensued outside the council chambers during that time, but the meeting resumed shortly thereafter.
Daily Progress


National Stories
​

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has issued a binding opinion under the state's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that email messages sent or received through public employees' personal email accounts may be public records subject to disclosure under FOIA if the messages pertain to public business. On Jan. 28, 2016, CNN submitted a FOIA request to the Chicago Police Department (CPD) seeking "all emails related to Laquan McDonald from Police Department email accounts and personal email accounts where business was discussed" by 12 police officers. McDonald, who was killed in the incident, was shot 16 times in October 2014 by a Chicago police officer. McDonald was unarmed and the incident drew headlines across the nation. The City of Chicago produced email messages the City claimed were responsive to CNN's request, but CNN said that none of the messages produced by the City were responsive. CNN filed a challenge to the City's response with the Attorney General (AG) Public Access Counselor. While the challenge was pending, the City gave the AG a summary of the search methods the City used to locate records responsive to CNN's request. The summary revealed that the City searched the officers' email accounts on the City's email server. The summary did not show whether the City searched, or otherwise tried to obtain, any email messages that might have been in the officers' personal email accounts. The City subsequently confirmed that it had not sought email messages sent or received from personal accounts, regardless of whether the messages discussed public business.
Lexology

NOT LONG AFTER TAKING OVER AS EDITOR of the Des Moines Register in 2014, Amalie Nash told CJR that she was determined to uphold the paper’s “longstanding tradition of standing up for public records.” So now, as she prepares to leave the Register after being promoted to the new position of West Region executive editor for Gannett, it’s fitting that the paper has just won a meaningful battle on the open-records front. The state of Iowa announced last week that it would no longer allow companies to unilaterally redact information from the public copies of bids for government contracts. The move was the result of a 2015 story by Register reporter Jason Clayworth that first revealed the practice, and a subsequent complaint Clayworth filed with the Iowa Public Information Board. It’s the latest in a series of open-records victories during Nash’s tenure, during which the paper has filed numerous complaints with the Public Information Board and multiple lawsuits to gain access to public records. But Nash is the first to admit that the paper has lost some battles in the fight for transparency too, and even the wins can amount to just holding the line.
Columbia Journalism Review

The F.B.I. on Tuesday handed over to Congress documents related to its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server after House Republicans pushed the bureau to surrender material it had gathered before it concluded last month that she should not face criminal charges. The documents were believed to include notes from the F.B.I.’s 3½-hour interview with Mrs. Clinton in early July, the last step in a lengthy investigation into her email practices as secretary of state that continues to dog her run for president.
New York Times

Editorials/Columns

THIS SUMMER, THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE STIFFENED the penalties that can be imposed on public bodies that refuse to comply with the state’s Freedom of Information Act. HB 4715, part of a two-bill package known as “Molly’s Law,” allows courts to fine agencies up to $1,000 for every day that they delay in turning over documents after a court ruling. The penalty would be in addition to existing fines, which range from $2,500 to $5,000. The law, passed in response to a family’s fight for documents related to their daughter’s death, was touted by politicians as strengthening the state’s FOIA laws. Certainly stiffer penalties would seem to do that by sending the message to public bodies that not complying with FOIA could be costly. And the new law also establishes a presumption that a public body is wilfully violating the law if it ignores a binding opinion from the state’s attorney general to release documents. Under existing law, which already allows for civil penalties when public bodies “willfully and intentionally” violate the state FOIA, fines are rare. “The civil provision has been wholly ineffective at improving FOIA compliance,” says Matt Topic, a Chicago lawyer who has represented journalists with their FOIA court battles.
Columbia Journalism Review