Transparency News 8/31/16

 

Norfolk’s general services director, David Freeman, picked up an extra $6,528. Virginia Beach’s economic development director, Warren Harris, was awarded bonuses in back-to-back years totaling more than $15,000. And three attorneys in the Norfolk City Attorney’s Office each got a bonus of $6,000. These were some of the bonuses Norfolk and Virginia Beach gave to certain city employees in recent years. Norfolk and Virginia Beach are the only two cities in South Hampton Roads that give out sizable individual performance bonuses, according to data obtained by The Virginian-Pilot. An analysis of that data revealed that one department in each city distributed far more bonus money than the rest. In Norfolk, it was the City Attorney’s Office. In Virginia Beach, it was the city’s Convention and Visitors Bureau. Virginia Beach, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, provided records of all employees who received bonuses from January 2011 to October 2015 along with explanations of why some of those bonuses were awarded. Norfolk initially refused to give names of employees who received bonuses in a similar time frame but eventually relented after The Pilot enlisted an attorney. The city would not provide explanations for bonuses, citing a FOIA exemption that gives governmental bodies the discretion on whether to reveal details of employees’ personnel files.
Virginian-Pilot


National Stories
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A Missouri University law professor and candidate for Missouri's attorney general pushed back against a lawsuit filed against him over an open records request. Josh Hawley won the Republican nomination for the spot earlier this month, amidst a contentious race against state Sen. Kurt Schaefer by more than 30 points. He will face former Cass County prosecutor Teresa Hensley in the November primary. In May, former state representative Kevin Elmer filed a lawsuit against Hawley, the UM System and law school dean Gary Myers over a Sunshine request he made in 2015. Elmer said the parties involved conspired to withhold much of the request, which involved a years-worth of emails and phone records from Hawley before he announced his candidacy for attorney general. Elmer said he paid $5,000 for the request, and claimed "unjust enrichment" by the UM System and record custodian Paula Barrett, as well as to investigate "Hawley's improper comingling [sic] of University assets and personal political activities" before the election.
ABC 17

Sixty-one years after Emmett Till was brutally killed, a push is underway to pass legislation that bears his name. In 2008, Congress passed the Emmett Till Unsolved Crimes Act, which authorized the FBI to investigate cold cases from the unpunished civil rights era killings before 1970. The Senate has already reauthorized the bill, which has been expanded to include the release of more information on these killings. The House has not acted.
USA Today

Editorials/Columns

Our sympathy is divided among the victims and potential victims of a hepatitis A outbreak and the Virginia restaurants involved. We’re not sure, however, what sentiment the state health department deserves. The Virginia Department of Health will not release the locations of restaurant suspected of serving the tainted strawberries, a fact that troubles us. Health officials may not want to produce the information on the chance that it might create a false sense of security among customers who did not dine at the cited restaurants. Symptoms of hepatitis A can be delayed for up to 50 days, so customers should continue to be cautious. However, because the health department has not narrowed down the list of locations where infections may have been transmitted, the entire restaurant chain is put under suspicion and virtually all customers are subjected to a level of fear that may be unwarranted. As a matter of transparency, the state health department should release those details.
Daily Progress