Transparency News, 8/23/2022
Tuesday
August 23, 2022
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state & local news stories
Former Glasgow Middle School counselor Darren Thornton was arrested on child sex charges in November 2020. By law, the Chesterfield Police Department had to notify the Fairfax County Public School System of the arrest. But it appears the emails sent by the police department bounced back. The messages, obtained by WUSA9 through a Freedom of Information Act or FOIA, were never delivered. "Today, upon further investigation, we learned that the emails did come back to that employee's spam folder as undeliverable," said a police department spokesperson in a statement. "It is unknown who our staff member spoke to in the school office in November 2020. Going forward, we will record that information as part of our process for making notifications.”
WUSA
Former Roanoke councilman Robert Jeffrey Jr. was sentenced Monday to two and a half years behind bars for embezzling $200,000 from a community nonprofit where he worked and $15,000 from the city he was elected to serve. The sentencing hearing ran for three hours with more than 30 people in attendance, some of whom were admonished by bailiffs for audible remarks. One spectator was arrested. Judge David Carson admonished a large crowd in attendance at the hearing that, should there be disruptive behavior, bailiffs would arrest the offender on the spot for contempt of court. Soon after Jeffrey was led away, a spectator in the front remarked, “pure racism, pure racism.” Deputies placed Shaheed Omar in handcuffs and led him away.
The Roanoke Times
The Spotsylvania School Board on Friday approved the creation of a new full-time public relations position, to be funded by money saved from other unfilled positions. The board approved the position, titled “manager of executive communications,” and hired Jon Russell, a former candidate for mayor of Culpeper and chair of the Culpeper Republican Committee, to fill it at a special meeting on Friday. Russell’s starting salary will be $102,119, according to information obtained Monday through a Freedom of Information Act request. Interim superintendent Kelly Guempel said Friday that Russell’s position was created to assist the division’s communications department, which until Friday had only three full-time employees and is “the shortest-staffed [department] in the building.” “I want the position for my schools because all of the information going out has been about this body,” Guempel said, referring to the School Board. “It should be focused on the 24,000 kids we have. It’s ‘under the direction of the superintendent,’ which means I get to tell them what they are going to be covering, and they will not be covering the School Board. They will be covering students and staff and the things that are great.” Board member Lorita Daniels cited concerns with the fact that the new position was not brought to the board first before it was added to the packet. Prior meeting agendas show that the board has in the past received information about new positions and how they would be funded during regular meetings.
The Free Lance-Star
stories of national interest
"When the vault was opened, crews found 113 books of court records that each weighed around 20 pounds and dated all the way back to 1891."
A federal judge who said last week that he is “inclined” to unseal some of the affidavit central to the FBI search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida estate left open the possibility in a written order Monday that it would be so heavily redacted that releasing it would be “meaningless.” After hearing arguments in court on Thursday, Federal Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart ordered Justice Department officials to submit proposed redactions by Thursday at noon Eastern time. The Justice Department has opposed releasing the document, saying that its investigation is in the “early stages” and that making the affidavit public could chill potential witnesses, risk the safety of those already interviewed and reveal future investigative steps. News organizations are pushing for its disclosure, citing public interest in a case stemming from Trump’s possession of classified documents.
The Washington Post
Officials discovered a literal ton of documents thought to be lost to time earlier this week, revealing parts of local history that likely haven't been seen for decades. While working to clear and restore the Ashe Street Courthouse, which was recently transferred into the ownership of The City of Johnson City, crews removed a wall partition that happened to be hiding a vault in the former county seat's walls. When the vault was opened, crews found 113 books of court records that each weighed around 20 pounds and dated all the way back to 1891. The first case on record, W.M. Simpson vs. Mayor and Aldermen of Johnson City, resulted in a judgment of $96.30 (Roughly $3,135 today) in Simpson's favor.
WJHL
The public benefit of a state-funded $45 million business development program may be obscured by secrecy, but it helps protect taxpayer investment from exploitation by private beneficiaries, according to state and national analysts. The Maine Technology Asset Fund, a grant program paid for with a state bond, has paid out tens of millions of dollars to almost 30 Maine companies since 2019. However, confidentiality built into the program administrator, the quasi-government nonprofit Maine Technology Institute, leaves scant public information about the program's outcome. Fewer than 1,000 direct jobs have been created so far from the investment, far less than the 5,340 jobs projected from a confidential economic impact analysis in 2018 that also predicted the program would stimulate $1.4 billion in economic growth within three years.
Governing
