VCOG awarded challenge grant
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has awarded a 10th anniversary, $200,000 challenge grant to the Virginia Coalition for Open Government.
The grant, which must be matched dollar for dollar, will give VCOG for the first time a permanent endowment.
As proposed, all matching gifts and firm pledges must be raised by the first quarter of 2007 to qualify for the 1:1 match.
Investment income from the endowment will be used to support the Coalition’s activities, including its annual Laurence E. and Catharine G. Richardson Legal Fellowships.
VCOG already has received a lead gift of $20,000 from the Richardson Memorial Fund, earmarked for Richardson Fellows and matched by the Knight grant.
(Larry Richardson was a VCOG founder and long-time First Amendment and Freedom of Information supporter.)
The endowment campaign will be capped by a 10th anniversary fund-raising reception and dinner Nov. 16, 2006, at the Library of Virginia, a Coalition member. (Please save the date!)
Open-government supporters wishing to make a matching gift should contact Frosty Landon, VCOG’s executive director (flandon@opengovva.org or 540-353-8264). All gifts of cash or appreciated stock are tax-deductible.
The Knight brothers were newspaper publishers with a strong commitment to preserving and expanding our First Amendment liberties. They established the foundation in 1950 to support various public-service, philanthropic and free-press initiatives.
In recent years, the foundation has been a major funding supporter for the National Freedom of Information Coalition and its member organizations, including Virginia’s open-government group.
VCOG greets TCOG
Frank Gibson, former president of the Society of Professional Journalists, has been named part-time executive director of the new Tennessee Coalition for Open Government. Gibson, a long-time editor at the Tennessean, spearheaded TCOG’s formation. He recently was elected to the board of directors of the National FOI Coalition.
NFOIC move
The National FOI Coalition has moved its headquarters to the University of Missouri’s FOI Center. Charles Davis, director of the center, was appointed NFOIC’s executive director. NFOIC previously was housed at the offices of the Texas Freedom of Information Foundation.
‘Saps’ retires
Bill Millsaps retired July 1 as executive editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He worked almost 40 years at the paper and served on the 1995-96 steering committee that helped launch the Virginia Coalition for Open Government.
So does Bill Wood
Gov. Mark Warner paid tribute to Bill Wood, who retired July 1 as director of the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership. Speaking at a Richmond dinner in Wood’s honor, Warner said: “Through his work at the Sorensen Institute, he has elevated the discussion and trained generations of young, up and coming leaders in Virginia, and he’s done it in a nonpartisan way.”
Sausage-watching
“People who love the law or good sausage should never watch either being made,” said German chancellor Otto von Bismarck (1815-98).
It may not quite match the latest Harry Potter book in sales or readers, but “Notes from the Sausage Factory” should provide good late-summer reading for Virginia’s political junkies, pundits, policy wonks and hangers-on.
It’s all the brainchild of Patrick County’s newspaper columnist Barnie Day (sometime state legislator, sometime county administrator, sometime elected county official, all-the-time Democrat ).
Co-edited with VCOG member Becky Dale, it’s a nonpartisan collection of commentaries from legislators, senators and governors (yes, including Republicans), lobbyists, journalists and ex-journalists – and other wonks.
Don’t let the kids go hungry or anything, but if you’ve got a spare $19.95, order it this very moment at http://www.baconsrebellion.com/Books.php .
Online public notices
The Virginia Press Association has developed a Web site to broaden the reach of public-notice advertising. VPA has fought legislation in the General Assembly that would have taken public notices such as unclaimed property and requests for proposals out of print publications.
Posting public notices online is intended to show the Virginia General Assembly that Virginia newspapers are working to place public notices on the Internet at the same time they are required to be run in newspapers, the VPA said.
Among the first Virginia newspapers to post their public notices at http://www.publicnoticeads.com were the Daily Press , Newport News; The News & Advance , Lynchburg; The Smithfield Times ; and the Virginian Review , Covington.
VCOG’s board of directors opposes mandates for Internet-only public notices. Not all citizens are Web-savvy, and not all areas of the state are “wired,” the board has noted.