Transparency News 9/24/14

Eight people want to represent the Vinton area on the Roanoke County School Board. In an unusual turn of events, the elected Roanoke County School Board is appointing a replacement to fill the seat formerly occupied by Mike Stovall, who represented the area for almost 20 years until two weeks ago. Board candidates were asked to submit an application not to exceed two typed pages. It was to include but not be limited to name, address, email, phone number, education, work background, ties to Roanoke County schools, a brief statement on why they are seeking the appointment, whether they plan to seek re-election and any other information the candidates deemed pertinent. Although candidates’ names were released Monday evening, their applications were not. Chairman Drew Barrineau said the board’s attorney suggested applications be treated as personnel records and not released. Megan Rhyne, Virginia Coalition for Open Government executive director, said the better policy is to keep the process open, but there is a plausible argument to be made that applications are personnel records and the approach is not uncommon. “It is definitely not the most transparent thing to do,” she said. “We just think the better course of action is to keep the process open.”
Roanoke Times

Discussion got heated at the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday when two supervisors declined to show up or vote on a closed meeting item. After the closed session, which the public and media cannot attend, Supervisors Al Bedrosian and Butch Church gave reasons why they didn’t attend a vote about the search for a new county administrator to replace Clay Goodman, who retired this summer. Church and Bedrosian read from statements they had previously prepared to say that a disturbing issue had come up in previous closed sessions that had ties to the county administrator search that needed to be addressed before it continued. They said they had viewed documents on this troubling matter and were offended that other supervisors didn’t take the time to do so. The two were tight-lipped about what the troubling matter was, being bound by the rules of closed session.
Roanoke Times

Can street flooding be crowdsourced? Apparently so, as the Norfolk-based environmental group Wetlands Watch hones its Sea Level Rise app to enable the public to issue and receive real-time alerts about waterlogged streets. When the app launches in a couple of weeks, Wetlands Watch Executive Director Skip Stiles says flood watchers — nicknamed "floodies" — can download it for free and join the effort to pinpoint trouble spots during a rain or storm event. "Anyone can drop a pin and say, 'Boom, flooded,'" Stiles said.
Daily Press

“Where’s Waldo” is one of the thousands of books banned or challenged in libraries or schools around the country, according to the American Library Association, and was one of 15 books discussed at Monday’s inaugural Speed Book Talk, an event to encourage discussion about banned books and share book recommendations. National Banned Books Week runs through Saturday. Libraries around the country are encouraged to host events to celebrate the freedom to read. The Campbell County Library system will host another Speed Book Talk from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Altavista branch library.
Roanoke Times

National Stories

A new conservative school board majority here in the Denver suburbs recently proposed a curriculum-review committee to promote patriotism, respect for authority and free enterprise and to guard against educational materials that “encourage or condone civil disorder.” In response, hundreds of students, teachers and parents gave the board their own lesson in civil disobedience.
New York Times

Dan Tangherlini isn’t saying government should be run like a business. But businesses sure can teach governments a thing or two. Namely, said the administrator for the General Services Administration, which is the federal government's office manager and landlord, governments have a reputation of being slow to change and inconvenient for the average working person. “You can’t have government services that look [one way] and then when you go to the store and it looks [another way],” Tangherlini, who also spent 10 years in local government, said at Governing’s Cost of Government conference in Washington, D.C. “It doesn’t really go over well when you say we’re open Mondays to Fridays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. except for holidays — including ones that I get and you don’t.” One way of embracing that dynamic is by changing the physical workplace and embracing the growing preference of younger workers that their offices be more collaborative. Tangherlini gave up his 1,600 square-foot office to take a desk in the new bullpen-style floor at the GSA for the simple reason that he says it’s “really important that when we ask people to do stuff, we do it ourselves.”
Governing

Though a lawsuit prompted the disclosure of dozens more records on grizzly bear preservation efforts, it is hard to prove intentional government stonewalling, a federal magistrate ruled. Today there are between 1,400 and 1,700 grizzly bears on 2 percent of their historic range, down from the roughly 50,000 grizzlies that roamed the lower 48 states in the 1800s. Only an estimated 400 to 600 grizzlies remain in the Greater Yellowstone Habitat. Grizzly bears are currently listed as "threatened," a label that environmentalists still contest. Chicago-based grizzly bear activist Robert Aland had used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain records about efforts by the U.S. Department of Interior and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to remove grizzly bears from the endangered species list. Specifically, Aland sought documents related to the drafting of a May 2012 letter from Wyoming Gov. Matthew Mea to then-Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar requesting an expedited effort to remove protection for grizzlies; Salazar's responsive letter; and documents discussing a 2011 9th Circuit decision that keeping grizzlies on the endangered species list. The agencies claim that they responded to Aland's request and withheld just five documents based on privilege. It took them nearly a year to produce the documents, which they provided to Aland without an index. Only after he filed suit did the agencies find an additional 47 responsive documents and provide an index.
Courthouse News Service

The Reporters Committee and eight news organizations are asking the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to abandon a proposal to allow only consumer complaint narratives from those “opting in” to be posted on its online database. In addition to being important public records that are subject to disclosure, the database is an important source of information for the press and the public relating to financial regulation. "Not only are the narratives important resources for consumers, journalists, and the public at large, they are also government records and, accordingly, should be open to public inspection to the greatest extent possible," the coalition’s comments to CFPB stated. "The relationship between consumers and financial institutions remains a topic of utmost public concern in the United States and around the world. The experiences reflected in the narrative portion of consumer complaints submitted to the CFBP will contribute to the public’s understanding of that relationship, and inform the ongoing democratic debate regarding financial regulations."
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
 

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