Transparency News 9/27/17

Wednesday, September 27, 2017


Nominations are being accepted for VCOG’s Freedom of Information Awards, to be presented in the fall of 2017. Entries should be submitted by October 9, 2017, by filling out the form linked above or by mailing the same information to VCOG, P.O. Box 2576, Williamsburg VA  23187.

State and Local Stories

For my last blog entry I wrote about how you at home can watch the legislative process unfold: how the committee system is structured, how a committee meeting works, how to watch the floor sessions of either the House or Senate, and what to make of all of those tradition-bound terms and phrases. Today I’m writing about tracking legislation on your own. How do you identify bills you’d like to follow, and how do you know at what stage in the process a bill is in? I’ll also talk about how you track individual legislators to see what types of bills they’ve introduced and how they voted on other measures.
Megan Rhyne, VCOG’s Truth in the Field Blog

Ryan Ray, president of Ray and Associates, said a “misunderstanding” caused the search firm’s regional director Michael Rush to prevent The News & Advance from covering a public meeting Monday night at E.C. Glass High School. At the meeting, representatives from the firm intended to solicit feedback from community members about what characteristics they desired in a new superintendent for Lynchburg City Schools. On Tuesday morning, LCS Interim Superintendent Larry Massie released a statement that said the meeting was a “public affair that was advertised as such,” and “the media was invited and should have been granted access.”
News & Advance

The Chesterfield County School Board is considering adding some rules to its board handbook. One of the possible changes has to do with media inquiries to board members, while another regards how principals should report issues in their schools. The handbook already says board members should forward all media inquiries to their community relations department for “a full discussion of background material to ensure that everyone has the most updated information.” New language proposes that the community relations department will then provide board members with media responses from the school division.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

Harrisonburg and Rockingham County public schools are working to address accessibility shortfalls on their websites after an out-of-state special-education advocate filed a complaint against them for not being compliant with federal law. Rockingham County Superintendent Oskar Scheikl and Toni Sheets, the city school system’s executive director of technology, each said their respective divisions were notified late last year that the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights had received a complaint that their sites were not compliant with requirements regarding access for people with disabilities.
Daily News Record



National Stories
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The anticipated release of thousands of never-before-seen government documents related to President John F. Kennedy's assassination has scholars and armchair detectives buzzing. The National Archives has until Oct. 26 to disclose the remaining files related to Kennedy's 1963 assassination, unless President Donald Trump intervenes. The still-secret documents include more than 3,000 that have never been seen by the public and more than 30,000 that have been released previously, but with redactions.
Fox News

News that at least six current or former senior members of the Trump administration have used private email accounts as they conduct official business has prompted the White House to clarify its policy. "All White House personnel have been instructed to use official email to conduct all government-related work," press secretary Sarah Sanders said. "They are further instructed that if they receive work-related communication on personal accounts, they should be forwarded to official email accounts."
NPR



Editorials/Columns


A public school system and its superintendent need the support of the community. We believe transparency is key to that trust at every level, and especially at the top. So we were troubled when a News & Advance reporter was barred from attending a community gathering this week to give folks the opportunity to say what they wanted to see in the next superintendent for Lynchburg City Schools as the search gets underway. Transparency at all levels of government is vital in a democracy, and The News & Advance fiercely protects and fights for the public’s right to know what its government is doing on their behalf. That’s why the actions of Ray and Associates and Rush deeply concern us — by barring a reporter from attending an open meeting, they essentially cut off access for the public at large.
News & Advance