Transparency News 9/1/15

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  Tuesday, September 1, 2015

    State and Local Stories


The state of Virginia seems to have undercut a basic tenet of its Freedom of Information Act with a personnel policy that forbids state officials from releasing all but the most basic employee information. FOIA itself says that release is up to the government, and the employee. Neither has to release personnel records to the public, but if either chooses to, they will be released. But a personnel policy passed in 1993 and reworked in 2005 changed the rule, at least in current practice. Gov. Terry McAuliffe's administration provided a copy of this policy this week, after more than two weeks questioning from the Daily Press, The Virginian-Pilot and others about why an administrative review conducted in the wake a University of Virginia student's bloody arrest would not be release. McAuliffe and officials with the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control say this report exonerates the three ABC officers involved in that arrest, and that they'd like to release it, but they can't. The policy requires written consent from the employee before information about performance, suspensions, complaints and most information beyond job title, dates of employment and salary, can be released to a third party. ABC has declined to say whether the officers involved have been asked to OK release.
Daily Press

Portsmouth forced out its general services director over his purchase of nearly $900,000 worth of mulching equipment, and city staff members still struggle to figure out what to do with it. But City Council members blame lack of oversight for the unwanted expense. The Pilot reported in July that Dennis Bagley was forced to resign because he had improperly spent roughly $500,000 on mulch equipment from a German company. Sources said Bagley proceeded with the purchase even after a supervisor denied him permission to start a city-owned business that sells recycled mulch. In all, Bagley spent $891,877 on mulch equipment. The city plans to try to recover costs by reselling the equipment or returning it to the manufacturers. Bagley, however, said he had permission and support from former City Manager John Rowe for the purchase, as well as money set aside from the previous year's budget. Rowe confirmed Bagley's account. Now, the city is awaiting a forensic audit of the Waste Management fund to see what happened. It's not yet ready, but last month Brannon Godfrey, who served as interim city manager after Rowe's departure, said so far the audit has "not found any matters of noncompliance."
Virginian-Pilot

Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s climate change commission on Monday endorsed five top recommendations for addressing the issue, ranging from creating a special bank to finance alternative-energy projects to forming a clearinghouse of climate information.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

The mother of the former Lynchburg City Schools middle school student charged with felony assault said she is not free to discuss details of Monday’s juvenile court hearing. Stacey Doss thanked supporters of her son Kayleb Moon-Robinson in a statement released as an update to a Change.org petition, which was delivered to the Lynchburg Commonwealth Attorney’s Office last Friday. “I want to thank everyone for supporting my son Kayleb. As you know we were in court today. We have received an outcome; however we aren't free to go into detail about the judge's decision as of yet,” Doss wrote. “I am deeply touched by the amount of continued support and I want to thank you all for showing us that we aren't alone. … Kayleb is doing well and has been thriving through this adversity. I’m very proud of my son and strength he has shown during this time. He is an amazing young man.” Commonwealth Attorney Michael Doucette said due to privacy laws he could not comment on the case except in response to public statements by defendants.
News & Advance

The Public Housing Authority and local branch of the NAACP passed the first hurdle in their lawsuit against the City of Charlottesville for police records of stops and frisks when a judge refused the city’s request to throw out the suit August 25. The case is also raising questions about how government bodies use discretionary exemptions under the Freedom of Information Actto withhold materials from the public rather than use the discretion to release information.
C-Ville

Two New York City men pleaded guilty Monday in Shenandoah County Circuit Court to single charges of money laundering in a cigarette smuggling case. John Taveras received a longer jail sentence, 90 days, than his co-defendant, Thaer Nimer Khashman, who will serve 30 days. Both were also sentenced to two years supervised probation. Taveras and Khashman each could have been sentenced to a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison and a $500,000 fine on the money laundering charges. The plea agreement ended a prolonged legal battle in which their defense attorney, David Downes of Front Royal, sought to learn the details of an elaborate undercover investigation conducted by the Shenandoah County Sheriff’s Office into cigarette smuggling. Downes filed three freedom of information requests, one of which led to Sheriff Timothy C. Carter revealing that his office had received more than $11 million and spent almost $10 million as a result of the sting operation during a three-year period from Jan. 1, 2011 until Dec. 31, 2013.
Northern Virginia Daily

Three members of Hopewell City Council were forced to hold off a special meeting to discuss strategic planning and the future of the city for the second time this year after the council failed to meet quorum. Councilors Jackie Shornak, Wayne Walton and Jasmine Gore were the only members present at the scheduled Aug. 28 Strategic Plan advance, with councilors Anthony Zevgolis, Arlene Holloway, Vice Mayor Christina Luman-Bailey and Mayor Brenda Pelham absent from the meeting. At least four councilors must attend in order to have a quorum. “I am here today to show my concern that two City Council retreats have been cancelled by other members of council after securing dates already agreed upon. I understand that emergencies come up, but to keep delaying the scheduling of the retreat is not good for the city,” Shornak said. “It is of the utmost importance that we can discuss last year’s strategic plan and know where we stand in obtaining our goals and where we need to be going.” 
Progress-Index

Back in 2008, Roanoke, Va., a city of about 100,000, had a modest social media program run by its Department of Communications. But when an unusually strong snowstorm hit the city in the winter of 2014, things changed practically overnight. Timothy Martin, communications coordinator in charge of social media, planned to use the city’s Facebook page to get information about the storm out to residents and to provide an avenue for people to ask questions about snow removal, among other things. He thought it also would be fun if residents posted photos of the storm. The response was overwhelming. “Those photos were viewed by more than 400,000 people on Facebook,” Martin says. “That was the moment social media took off in Roanoke.” In that instant, Martin and others realized social media wasn’t just a side project anymore, something to use merely as an occasional tool to get news of an event out to the public. So officials went about integrating it into Roanoke’s daily routine. The city saw its followers grow from about 22,000 on Facebook and Twitter to more than 100,000 in just over a year, and the number of social media pages run by various city departments now exceeds 40.
Governing


National Stories
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Chelsea Clinton warned her parents that international relief efforts in Haiti were a disaster and that major changes were needed in a memo released on Monday that offered a rare window into her role in America’s most prominent political family. “To say I was profoundly disturbed by what I saw — and didn’t see — would be an understatement,” Ms. Clinton wrote in a memo addressed to “Dad, Mom” and attached to an email she sent while her mother was secretary of state and her father was leading relief efforts for the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. “The incompetence is mind numbing.” The memo was one of 4,368 documents totaling 7,121 pages, posted online Monday night by the State Department as part of a monthly disclosure ordered by a court after the revelation that Hillary Rodham Clinton had used a private email server while she was secretary of state. The department initially said it had redacted information from roughly 150 emails because they contained sensitive information, then reduced that estimate to 125. The information was deleted because “confidential” materials — the lowest classification of government intelligence — had been discovered in the correspondence. None of the documents were marked classified at the time they were sent, said Mark Toner, a spokesman for the State Department.
New York Times

When it comes to public ethics, things aren’t always black or white. There are plenty of actions that might not be illegal, but nonetheless would be seen by most people as an abuse of power. In Ohio, such occurrences ultimately went unflagged in audit reports. But State Auditor Dave Yost wants to change that. In July, he implemented a new policy allowing for findings of “abuse” that are meant to draw attention to highly questionable behavior by public officials not directly contradicting state rules or laws. “We would see isolated instances where people were not breaking the law, but were treating the public purse as their own ATM,” says Yost, who emphasizes that most public employees are well intentioned. “There was a need for us to make a public record of it.” Previously, Yost says, such instances of abuse rarely showed up in audit reports, even though the designation was permitted under state auditing guidelines. This meant that the public rarely learned of highly questionable -- but still legal -- offenses unless they were uncovered by a newspaper or watchdog group. (In some other states, instances of abuse are typically included as a part of larger reports.)
Governing

Chicago has sued the company that formerly ran its red light traffic camera program for more than $300 million, alleging that the program was built on a bribery scheme, the Chicago Tribune newspaper reported on Monday. The former chief executive of the Australian camera firm Redflex Traffic Systems pleaded guilty on Aug. 20 in U.S. District Court to federal bribery charges. The city earlier in August moved to intervene in a whistleblower lawsuit filed in April 2014 by a former Redflex executive vice president, Aaron Rosenberg, who said he was ordered by superiors to help organize the scheme, the Tribune reported. Chicago alleges in the lawsuit, which was unsealed on Aug. 26, that the entire Redflex program was built on a $2 million bribery scheme, the Tribune reported.
Reuters


Editorials/Columns

A utility as large as Dominion Power that enjoys a monopoly in the marketplace and remarkable clout in the state legislature shouldn’t be surprised when even a minor financial aspect of its operations raises public eyebrows. The Associated Press raised a valid question recently when it reported on how the company routinely recoups some of its charitable donations through the rates paid by its customers. For reasons they deem important, some states don’t allow their public utilities to do that. In response to the report and the ensuing groundswell of public concern, Dominion announced that it will no longer pursue the rate recovery practice, instead funneling all of its donations through the existing shareholder fund it has long used for the lion’s share of charitable giving. It can certainly continue to ask customers for donations to its energy assistance and weatherization programs.
Free Lance-Star