Transparency News, 9/30/21

ICYMI, the Fairfax school district — represented by Hunton Andrews Kurth — is trying to get records they released under FOIA backfrom the woman who filed a FOIA request for them and from the woman who posted them on her website.
VCOG on Twitter
Memo in support of the injunction

After hearing a pitch from six candidates on why they should be selected for the Lynnhaven District seat during a public meeting on Tuesday, the City Council met in private and narrowed down the list. Fourteen people originally applied for the position that former Councilman Jim Wood vacated abruptly Sept. 1 due to the demands, he said, of a new job. The council narrowed down the list to six last week. The public can speak about the candidates at a meeting next Tuesday, and then the council will pick one of them to serve.
The Virginian-Pilot

After reading The Free Lance–Star’s story Wednesday about local deaths from COVID-19, Debra Hall of Spotsylvania County asked a question that other readers have posed in recent weeks. “What we’re really wondering is, all these people who are dying, have they been vaccinated or not?” she asked. “I think it’s useful information and it just seems to be something they keep leaving out of the articles.” The information isn’t included in stories about deaths in the Rappahannock Area Health District because it isn’t available from the Virginia Department of Health. In its attempt to maintain patient confidentiality, the state doesn’t provide vaccination status on a case-by-case basis.
The Free Lance-Star

California U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes is appealing a defamation lawsuit to the Virginia Supreme Court after the case was recently dismissed from the Albemarle County Circuit Court. The suit charged that the McClatchy Co. — which owns several newspapers across the country, but none in Virginia — conspired with Virginia-based “center-right” operative Elizabeth Mair to defame the congressman and interfere with his investigations into Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russian election interference. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Nunes, a Republican, by Charlottesville attorney Steven Biss in Albemarle Circuit Court in April 2019. McClatchy was later non-suited after the company filed for bankruptcy in July 2020 and the complaint was dismissed against Mair following a hearing in June.  Nunes’ Supreme Court of Virginia petition for appeal, filed Sept. 27, argues that the decision to grant dismissal during the demurrer stage — a stage early in a lawsuit in which a defendant objects to facts alleged — was improper. The petition also argues that the county circuit court erred when it found that the statements published by Mair and her conspirators were not defamatory.
The Daily Progress

Nine months ago, Fairfax County adopted a Trust Policy to “ensure that the County is not a source of personal information that those outside the County can exploit for their own purposes.” This privacy right applies to all residents, but is especially critical for immigrant residents who fear information the County has could end up in the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Fairfax County Police Department (FCPD), the agency with the biggest trust deficit in Fairfax, is simply ignoring the policy. FCPD’s website allows the public to download a yearly arrest list that includes the full name, home address and date of birth of all persons arrested and charged. Over 19,000 charges are linked to identifiable individuals. FCPD is considering limiting disclosure to names, but that only reduces the privacy risk without eliminating it. It doesn’t matter whether a person is charged with a minor misdemeanor or serious violent felony. Nor does it matter whether the charge is dismissed or the person is found innocent. The list of shame is not updated. FCPD’s publication constitutes an unwarranted invasion of privacy and undermines the presumption of innocence to which we all are entitled. Most newspapers, including the Washington Post and The Connection, don’t publish the names of people arrested for routine offenses. Neither does Arlington County, Richmond or Virginia Beach. But “progressive” Fairfax does.
Diane Burkley Alejandro and Luis Aguilar, Fairfax Connection