Transparency News 8/7/15

Friday, August 7, 2015

State and Local Stories

The Virginia attorney general’s office, the Supreme Court of Virginia and the state’s elected circuit court clerks may be close to an agreement that could provide public access to a database of Virginia trial court records. An attorney for the Daily Press in Newport News said he should know by early this week whether a deal could be reached or whether the paper would have to file suit to seek access to the compilation of case data. Officials at both the attorney general’s office and the Supreme Court confirmed that discussions are underway to formulate a plan to make the court records public pursuant to a new request from the newspaper. An attorney representing Virginia circuit court clerks also is involved.
Virginia Lawyers Weekly via VCOG

Wilma Wirt, a retired Virginia Commonwealth University professor credited with mentoring a generation of collegiate and high school journalists, has been selected as the 2015 winner of the George Mason Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, Virginia Pro Chapter. Wirt taught writing, editing and other subjects from 1987 to 2006 at VCU, where she shaped partnerships with the Virginia High School League to train students and teachers. She also founded the VCU Capital News Service, which gives journalism students experience reporting on the General Assembly while providing the state’s non-daily and community newspapers with coverage they would not otherwise have. “In an age when the number of public relations ‘spin doctors’ vastly outnumbers working journalists, encouraging young people to become career journalists is increasingly difficult and increasingly important. Ms. Wirt’s life work has been to do precisely that,” wrote John Edwards, publisher of The Smithfield Times, in supporting Wirt’s nomination for the Mason award. “Nothing more directly or positively impacts the First Amendment.”
Times-Dispatch
(NOTE: Wirt has been a longtime, consistent supporter of VCOG. Want to join her? Click here: www.opengovva.org/join)

Two Tuesdays every month, City Council meets at Rouss City Hall to conduct its business. Residents have the opportunity to air grievances and listen as their elected officials debate policy on everything from tax hikes to road projects to rezonings to make way for new development. In essence, they are the two times a month residents can witness — and take part in — the governance of their city.
Winchester Star

When an outside agency began a re-accreditation process in mid-March for the Augusta County Sheriff's Office, no one told it about missing cash from the evidence room, officials say. The group would go on to certify the Sheriff's Office, even praising the evidence room management. Why was the agency not told? Sheriff Randy Fisher now claims he kept silent because he wasn't sure if the almost $4,000 was gone or not, and an investigation was not finished. "At the time the accreditation team was here, we were not sure or certain that the money was in fact missing," Fisher said in an email Wednesday. But although Fisher and investigators apparently still don't know where the cash went — the money had been seized from a 2012 drug arrest and held in the evidence room safe — the sheriff did know it was gone. He had known for weeks. The News Leader's exclusive investigative story about the mystery was published in May. About two weeks later, Fisher received an email on June 2 from Sheriff Brian Roberts of the Brunswick County Sheriff's Office in Lawrenceville. Roberts is the chairman of the Virginia Law Enforcement Professional Standards Commission, a volunteer agency that does the state's accreditation under the management of the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services. In the email, Roberts set up a June 9 meeting in Verona at the sheriff's office, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. It's not clear what happened at the June meeting. "(The Sheriff's Office) learned a long time ago never to put anything in an email you don't want to see FOIAed," Augusta County Administrator Pat Coffield wrote in an email to The News Leader. "We have all learned from your past FOIAs."
News Leader

Virginia is recalling the 1,691 specialty license plates featuring a Confederate battle flag, state officials said Thursday. But it's unclear how quickly the flag tags will disappear from roadways. The affected motorists will be sent new Sons of Confederate Veterans tags along with a letter telling them they have 30 days before the old plate is invalid, said Department of Motor Vehicles spokeswoman Brandy Brubaker. However, the replacement tag doesn't exist yet. The DMV will work with the heritage group to come up with a new flagless plate design, Brubaker said. Then the plate has to be manufactured and sent to holders of the specialty plate.
Virginian-Pilot

The Democratic candidate for Loudoun County Sheriff on Wednesday dropped a defamation of character lawsuit against a fellow party member after a months-long legal battle.  Brian P. Allman had filed suit against Loudoun County Democratic committee member Larry Roeder Jr. after Allman said Roeder accused him of being convicted of a felony during a hostile May 8 party meeting.  Allman was seeking a least $1 million in damages.  The lawsuit was almost immediately filed following the May 8 Democratic party meeting, where Roeder referred to Allman's 2003 conviction on an obscenity charge.  At the meeting, Roeder objected to Allman's qualifications for sheriff, saying he can been convicted of a felony. However, Roeder quickly recanted the statement, saying the charged had been dropped.  Allman was convicted of calling an attorney a part of the female genitalia, a decision that was dismissed after Allman contested it on the grounds of insufficient evidence. 
Loudoun Times-Mirror

A top Fairfax County government attorney, who faced termination for her handling of a case involving the fatal police shooting of an unarmed man, wants to pursue a grievance against the county, which is seeking to keep key documents in the case hidden from public view. Deputy County Attorney Cynthia L. Tianti was nearly fired in March after Sharon Bulova (D), the chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, said Tianti had not informed the board that the county prosecutor wanted to meet to discuss the case of John B. Geer, who was killed by a county police officer. Tianti headed the legal team that advised Fairfax Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. to withhold documents from the prosecutor in his investigation of Geer’s 2013 killing, previously released e-mails show.
Washington Post

State taxpayers paid about $224,000 for legal work to protect the documents of a GOP aide who helped state lawmakers draw congressional district lines. The liberal group ProgressVA, which discovered the invoice through a Freedom of Information Act request, called the expense - authorized by House Speaker Bill Howell, R-Stafford County - inappropriate use of tax money.
Virginian-Pilot

National Stories

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts is suing the Boston Police Department in an effort to compel police to release data on stops of people on city streetssince January 2011, citing a prior report showing a disproportionate number of blacks and Latinos subjected to such inquiries. The ACLU filed the lawsuit Thursday in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston against the department and Police Commissioner William B. Evans. The suit seeks records filed as part of a program that includes field, interrogation, and observation stops by officers, known as FIOs, from Jan. 1, 2011, to the present day.
Boston Globe

A Pennsylvania prosecutor filed criminal charges on Thursday against Pennsylvania’s attorney general, Kathleen G. Kane, in a convoluted tale of political maneuvering and retribution that threatens the career of an official who was seen until recently as one of her state’s rising stars. Ms. Kane, a Democrat in her first term, has been accused of illegally giving grand jury documents to a newspaper in order to embarrass a critic, and then trying to cover up her actions with false testimony to a different grand jury. The Montgomery County district attorney, Risa V. Ferman, charged the attorney general with counts that include perjury and obstruction of justice. Ms. Ferman also filed a related charge against an aide to Ms. Kane.
New York Times