Yesterday, the Richmond City Council’s Government Operations Committee met to discuss, among other things, a proposed FOIA Library for the city’s website. Representatives from the mayor’s office asked for more time to evaluate and refine the proposal, which is being brought by councilmembers Kenya Gibson and Sarah Abubaker. The mayor’s office anticipates it will cost over $300,000 for three full-time employees to review completed FOIA requests to see if they should be included in the library. A spokesperson for the office said that secondary review of otherwise public records was necessary in part because of “liability.”

A local judge’s recent ruling inferred the Orange County Board of Supervisors met privately with other stakeholders to discuss the largest development plan in county history—the week before greenlighting the controversial proposal, situated on the edge of a Civil War battlefield. Circuit Court Judge David Franzén, in a Sept. 16 opinion letter, ruled American Battlefield Trust has a valid legal case against the county in seeking to block the Wilderness Crossing rezoning at Route 3/20. In his written opinion, Franzén called out the meeting during which Wilderness Crossing and the new ordinance was discussed, reportedly in violation of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, as ABT asserted in its 2023 complaint. Four elected members of the five-member Orange County Board of Supervisors attended the meeting in question, the judge wrote. The information is based on a May 2023 affidavit by then planning commission member J. Bryan Nicol, also at the meeting. His statements were submitted with the lawsuit. Nicol now sits on the board of supervisors in Orange County, elected in November 2023. The county argued the April 13 get-together was not a public meeting. The local government cited a FOIA exception saying it was “a collaborative discussion group comprised of Thought-Leaders interested in local economic development success, especially in the Germanna Wilderness Area.” “The argument fails for two reasons,” the judge stated, citing the three or more elected officials’ rule for public notice under FOIA, part of the Virginia Code.

To figure out whether the city of Richmond has or hasn’t turned over all text messages relevant to an ongoing lawsuit over transparency and alleged whistleblower retaliation at City Hall, a local judge took a look at two city-issued phones herself. Lawyers representing the city had previously said there were no text messages on a work cell phone used by former city spokesperson Petula Burks relevant to the lawsuit brought by former city employee Connie Clay, who worked under Burks as Richmond’s Freedom of Information Act officer. As it turns out, according to testimony at a court hearing Wednesday, there were almost no text messages on Burks’ phone at all. Lawyers for the city said the phone was nearly empty because Burks misplaced her original work phone last year shortly before she left city government. “Ms. Burks lost her phone in New York at the airport,” said Jimmy F. Robinson Jr., an attorney with the Ogletree Deakins firm who is representing Burks and the city in the case. Instead of the contents of the missing phone being restored, Robinson said Burks apparently started clean with a new device.

After the agenda for last night’s Purcellville Town Council meeting was released with new guidance for public speakers, residents raised concerns that the mayor was infringing on their first amendment rights. The guidance prohibits profanity, vulgarity, personal attacks, or threatening language and limits each speaker’s time to two and a half minutes and warns that disorderly conduct would results in a warning and, if necessary, removal from the meeting and requires that speakers address the council as a whole, not individual councilmembers, town staff, or members of the public. But the phrase that residents said they were most concerned with prohibited criticism of councilmembers, staff or members of the public. A revised agenda was posted just prior to the meeting that did not include that restriction. That change followed a Monday evening meeting between acting Town Manager Diana Hays and Town Attorney Gifford Hampshire on the issue. Despite the change, residents on Tuesday used their two and half minutes of public speaking time to raise concerns about the guidance. “Free speech is messy, sometimes uncomfortable, but always, always essential. Our Town deserves leadership that can handle a little heat without trying to unplug the stove,” Becky Gardner said.

A debate over whether to approve the minutes from previous Lynchburg City Council meetings turned into one of the most chaotic moments in City Hall in recent memory, leading council to vote to adjourn Tuesday night’s meeting early because of the tense environment. At one point in the meeting, when At-large Councilman Martin Misjuns was making accusations against City Attorney Matthew Freedman, the city attorney sought to offer an explanation. “I’m being interrupted by a staff member, and I don’t appreciate that,” Misjuns said in response to Freedman. From the other side of the dais, Ward IV Councilman Chris Faraldi then responded to Misjuns’ comment by saying, “Because you’re an ass.” The debate over meeting minutes was a carryover from council’s Sept. 9 meeting when members voted to accept a request made by Diemer, Misjuns and Timmer to give them two more weeks to work with Clerk of Council Alicia Finney to ensure the minutes reflected the actions taken at the meetings in question.

Bedford County Commonwealth’s Attorney Wes Nance will serve as the special prosecutor in the investigation into Martinsville staff spending. The Martinsville City Council, as part of its ongoing investigation into city spending, voted to fire City Manager Aretha Ferrell-Benavides and to give Commonwealth Attorney Andy Hall’s office pertinent evidence to determine whether criminal proceedings were appropriate. Hall recently decided that a special prosecutor was needed for the case. Hall disclosed Nance’s identity two weeks after announcing that he would be seeking a special prosecutor. While Nance had already been tapped at the time of the announcement, Hall said he wanted to hold off on publicly naming the special prosecutor to give them time to familiarize themselves with the case.

As federal immigration officials stepped up deportations, law enforcement conducted nearly 3,000 searches related to immigration enforcement on Virginia’s Flock Safety network over a recent 12-month period, according to an analysis by the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO. Although Virginia police and sheriffs’ departments stated they would not use their systems for immigration enforcement, their systems’ connection to a national network allowed thousands of outside law enforcement agencies to surveil Virginians’ traffic routines and access license plate and vehicle data. The data obtained from the Town of Bridgewater and Mecklenburg County is the first glimpse of how often the Flock network has been used to assist federal immigration agencies in Virginia. The audit logs, obtained through a public records request by VCIJ, did not include personal details such as license plate numbers or vehicle types.

The George Mason University Board of Visitors hasn’t offered an explanation of why it has postponed a long-scheduled meeting on Thursday in Arlington County. It doesn’t need one. The board doesn’t have enough members confirmed by the General Assembly to constitute a quorum. “It’s pretty easy,” said former Rep. Tom Davis, R-11th, a former rector at George Mason. “You don’t have a quorum, you can’t act.”