Transparency News, 9/14/2022
Wednesday
September 14, 2022
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state & local news stories
"NFOIC's National FOI Summit -- three days of virtual panels and speakers tackling current issues in access and transparency news, plus training to improve reporters' use of public records and social spaces for happy hours, making soap and meditation. All for $30!
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Individuals appointed to higher ed boards are being chosen for their skills, talents and prestige, not because they’re good bureaucrats who know the ins and outs of public body governance. There is not so much of a tradition of public meetings, so they may view their role more as stewards removed from the fray of local politics. They may chafe at the restrictions FOIA places on their ability to GET THINGS DONE! and are understandably frustrated with some of the seemingly arbitrary restrictions.
VCOG's Newsletter on Substack
NFOIC's National FOI Summit -- three days of virtual panels and speakers tackling current issues in access and transparency news, plus training to improve reporters' use of public records and social spaces for happy hours, making soap and meditation. All for $30!
Register today
A former state employee who used her position to defraud Virginia and the United States out of $1.2 million in COVID-19 relief funds was sentenced Tuesday to nearly seven years in prison. Sadie Mitchell submitted bogus applications using the identities of state prison inmates and exploited the personal information of Virginians she obtained from a government database. Mitchell, 30, and a co-conspirator identified in court Tuesday as Lamar Jones, 31 — who was fatally shot in Shockoe Bottom in December — used the diverted funds to line their own pockets. Mitchell used a portion to buy luxury goods that included gold and diamonds for herself, federal prosecutors said.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Monday’s meeting of the Spotsylvania School Board ended after five hours over the objections of three members, and without the board taking up any new or unfinished business. The meeting’s live feed ended about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, as board member Nicole Cole was still speaking. Cole, along with board member Dawn Shelley, was pressing for board Chair Kirk Twigg to schedule a work session and special meeting to address needed capital improvement projects. In response, Twigg told Shelley, “You give me a superintendent, I give you a meeting.” Earlier in the meeting, Twigg stated that he would be enacting a School Board policy that permits the chair to limit the number of speakers on any given topic to five. Twigg asked that the microphone be cut off on several people who started to express concerns about the board’s appointment of Mark Taylor as superintendent, stating that the limit on speakers who could address that topic had been reached. He asked Spotsylvania Sheriff’s Office deputies to remove two people from the meeting when they started to address Taylor’s appointment, and threatened others with removal. The board later went into recess when the mood on the dais and in the audience grew hostile. After the break, board member Rabih Abuismail asked Twigg to waive the five-person limit per subject.
The Free Lance-Star
A Los Angeles-based businessman has been indicted on charges of money laundering in an email phishing scam that cost Virginia Commonwealth University $470,000. A British man, Olabanji Oladotun Egbinola, was extradited earlier this year from the United Kingdom to face charges of fraud. Prosecutors allege that Egbinola posed as a representative of construction firm Kjellstrom and Lee, which has contracted with VCU in the past. Egbinola allegedly managed to convince VCU to pay $470,000 into an account with the Bank of Hope, an L.A.-based bank that primarily serves the Korean-American community.
WRIC
stories of national interest
"The former governor and others worked together to channel at least $5 million of the state’s welfare funds to build a new volleyball stadium at University of Southern Mississippi, where Brett Favre’s daughter played the sport."
Text messages entered Monday into Mississippi's ongoing civil lawsuit over the welfare scandal reveal that former Gov. Phil Bryant pushed to make NFL legend Brett Favre’s volleyball idea a reality. The texts show that the then-governor even guided Favre on how to write a funding proposal so that it could be accepted by the Mississippi Department of Human Services – even after Bryant ousted the former welfare agency director John Davis for suspected fraud. The newly released texts, filed Monday by an attorney representing Nancy New’s nonprofit, show that Bryant, Favre, New, Davis and others worked together to channel at least $5 million of the state’s welfare funds to build a new volleyball stadium at University of Southern Mississippi, where Favre’s daughter played the sport. Favre received most of the credit for raising funds to construct the facility.
Mississippi Today
The U.S. Navy is sitting on a trove of videos depicting unidentified flying objects (UFOs), but claims releasing them would be disastrous for national security. The announcement came as a response to a two year legal battle between the Navy and The Black Vault, a website dedicated to highlighting government secrets using Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Once the realm of pseudoscience, UFOs — sometimes called unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) by the U.S. military and other government agencies — have decidedly entered the political mainstream. In late 2017, the New York Times reported on a secretive Pentagon outfit dedicated to tracking and identifying UAPs. In April 2020, the Navy published three videos of UAPs, called FLIR1, Gimbal and GoFast, although these videos had leaked years prior to their official release.
Salon
editorials & columns
"And if that isn’t enough, let VBOE watch the school board chair gavel out speaker after speaker during public comments this past Monday, in direct violation of citizens’ First Amendment rights."
THE QUESTION before the Virginia Board of Education on Thursday is a simple one. Should it grant Mark Taylor a superintendent’s license under Option IV of the Virginia Administrative Code—after passing on doing so in August—thereby paving the way for him to become head of Spotsylvania County Public Schools? We feel that the answer is clear: No. As we reported: “In the July 9 letter … School Board Chair Kirk Twigg wrote, ‘The Spotsylvania School Board and Mr. Mark Taylor are all in agreement that he is the final candidate for the superintendent position. We were assured by [Jon Russell’s] office, GR Recruiting, and Mr. Taylor that all requirements have been met for Mr. Taylor to be placed on the Virginia state approved superintendent’s list.’ ” Except the School Board had not agreed. Virginia Code requires a public vote before sending such a letter, and no vote was taken in advance of that July 9 letter. Twigg had taken it upon himself to speak for the board. And Taylor, an attorney by training, knowingly went along by submitting the application. Further, Twigg is a stunningly opaque leader. He refuses to talk the media, doesn’t respond to constituents, and ignores members of his own board. Worse, when confronted with direct evidence about his relationship with Taylor, as Nicole Cole did at the board meeting on Aug. 25, he refuses to respond. And if that isn’t enough, let VBOE watch Twigg gavel out speaker after speaker during public comments this past Monday, in direct violation of citizens’ First Amendment rights.
The Free Lance-Star
Former President Donald Trump’s stashing of classified documents in his private golf club should be disturbing to all Americans, but most frightening to those who have at any time dealt with our nation’s secrets. And yet, some very senior elected government officials have chosen to dismiss the taking of the documents, as well as the unremitting determination not to return them, as nothing other than one more quirky thing by the King of Quirks. They may never admit it, but they all know they are wrong.Their cavalier attitude has reminded me of my naivete when I was a 23-year-old wearing a Navy uniform in 1969. I worked as personal yeoman to the chief of naval communications, who also served as the assistant chief of naval operations for communications and cryptology. Our office was in the Pentagon. To perform clerical duties for him, I was cleared by the FBI to hold a Top-Secret clearance. I was largely a gofer who transported, logged and secured classified material, and saw that documents which no longer had value were properly destroyed. Adm. Fitzpatrick sent me down to the chief of naval information one morning to pick up a news story from a small Wisconsin newspaper that seemed to be of considerable interest. When I got to CHINFO, a senior chief handed me an envelope and a Top-Secret log, which I was told to sign. I told him I thought I was picking up a news story. “You’re picking up a Top-Secret document,” he said. “Sign the log.”
John Edwards, The Smithfield Times
