Recordings of both FOIA Council subcommittees that met yesterday are available on the House of Delegates’ streaming page. Click the link below, then choose “Recordings” from the menu on the left. The recordings are in reverse chronological order. https://house.vga.virginia.gov/now_playing
The Richmond City Council held a special meeting Tuesday to fast-track a vote on having the city formally intervene in the pending merger between Dominion and Florida-based NextEra Energy. The special meeting didn’t go as planned. The Council introduced a resolution to have Richmond intervene in the complex energy regulatory decision pending at the State Corporation Commission. But the proposal didn’t advance to a vote for procedural reasons, casting doubt over whether the body will be able to hit a looming deadline for outside parties to file notice with the SCC saying they want to formally weigh in. Three Council members weren’t in their seats for a vote on whether the body should take up the proposal on an expedited basis. Two others abstained, apparently due to concerns about bringing the topic on short notice coming out of Labor Day weekend. That left only four votes in favor of fast-tracking the resolution, which wasn’t enough for it to advance to a final, same-day vote on Tuesday. There was no public discussion by the Council after the move failed, and no discussion on what might happen next. The Council proceeded as if the resolution would be taken up at a future meeting. However, the SCC’s deadline to intervene is Friday.
Back in the 1970s, soon after I returned to Smithfield and went to work for The Smithfield Times, I learned of a Smithfield Town Council practice that boiled my young reporter’s blood. Back then, the Virginia Freedom of Information Act exempted committees of elected bodies from public meeting requirements. Thus, a Town Council committee could meet in private. Members of the Smithfield council decided they would have all committees meet at the same time, thinking if one committee could meet secretly, why not several of them? Using that ploy, the full Town Council would meet each month in a collective gathering of committees. Once I knew about the practice, I thought a frontal assault might be the best approach, so I walked into the “group” committee meeting unannounced, uninvited and unwelcome. Town Manager Elsey Harris, who had only recently retired as a full colonel from the Air Force and taken on the manager’s job here, ordered me to leave, telling me I had no right to be there.
