VCOG thank-you's

Thanks to the many friends of open government who helped us make the Access 2003 conference a success.

Former Gov. Jerry Baliles, State Sen. Bo Trumbo, former Del. Jay Deboer and the press association's Ginger Stanley provided a fine roast of retiring Del. Chip Woodrum at the fund-raising dinner  although, as expected, Chip gave as good as he got. Thanks also to the Access 2003 sponsors:

" Freedom Forum/First Amendment Center
" Landmark Communications (The Roanoke Times, The Virginian-Pilot, Bedford Bulletin, Galax Gazette, Independence Declaration)
" Media General
" Christian & Barton
" LexisNexis
" NBC29, Charlottesville
" NBC 12, Richmond
" Norfolk Southern
" Virginia Association of Broadcasters
" Virginia Press Association
" Williams Mullen
" The Associated Press
" Charlottesville Daily Progress
" Hefty & Wiley
" Hunton & Williams
" McGuireWoods Consulting
" Thomas Jefferson Center for Protection of Free Expression
" Virginia Library Association
" Virginia Press Women
" Virginia Professional Chapter, Society of Professional Journalists

A special thanks to the University of Virginia's Board of Visitors for our use of Mr. Jefferson's historic Rotunda.

VCOG names 4 new directors

The Coalition has expanded its Board of Directors with election of four additional public members.

The new directors are Connie Houston, former state president, League of Women Voters; Mark Grunewald, professor of law, Washington & Lee University; Doug Henderson, director, Loudoun County Libraries; and Rod Smolla, dean, school of law, University of Richmond.

Re-elected to the 23-member board were Lucy Dalglish, executive director, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press; and Harry Hammitt, editor/publisher, Access Reports.

The board approved a change in title for Megan Rhyne from research associate to associate director, a title that more accurately reflects her responsibilities.

VCOG's Board of Directors now posts draft minutes of its meetings. Minutes from the Nov. 13 meeting are at this Web site:
www.opengovva.org/minutes/novemberminutes.htm

The next board meeting will be at 3:30 p.m. March 18, at Hotel Roanoke.

VCOG co-sponsors 6 FOI workshops

Nearly 650 people attended the FOI advisory council's 2003 workshops, held in six Virginia localities in September.

The training sessions are co-sponsored each year by the coalition, media and government groups.

In addition the council provided training for nearly 40 groups and government agencies in the past year.

Wiley updates his FOI guide
Richmond attorney Roger Wiley, an authority on the state's FOI Act, has published an updated version of his Local Government Officials' Guide to the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.
The handbook costs $5, plus sales tax, and is available at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Wiley is a former senior assistant attorney general and represents local government on the FOI Advisory Council.

The 2003 edition was published by U.Va.'s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, in cooperation with the Local Government Attorneys of Virginia. Other FOI guides are published by the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police, the Virginia Municipal League, the press association and the Virginia School Boards' Association.

FOIA requires each public official to have a copy of the text and to understand what it means.

New members

The following individuals and organizations recently have joined the Virginia Coalition for Open Government:

" Freedom Forum
" MIXNET Corp.
" Ben Dendy, Richmond
" Northern Virginia Daily
" Virginia Chamber of Commerce
" Virginia Interactive
" Barbara Saunders, Norfolk
" Chris Schmidt, Oakton
" Bernard Baker, Danville
" Ruth Carlone, Stafford
" Former Del. Bill Axselle, Richmond
" Former Del. Chip Woodrum, Roanoke
" Conrad Shumadine, Norfolk
" Barbara Wall, McLean
" Robert Yates, Vansant
" Robert Sisk, Marshall
" Lee Albright, Montebello

Membership is open to anyone supporting easy access to government records and public meetings.See link at bottom of page for membership information.

UR's Rod Smolla

[University of Richmond's T.C. Williams School of Law] has a high-flying new dean, with Hollywood credentials - although Rodney Smolla, an expert in First Amendment law - tries to play down the fact that film star Timothy Hutton portrayed him in a made-for-television movie.

The movie stemmed from Smolla's tome, "Deliberate Intent," in which he detailed his participation in a First Amendment case against a publisher.

Three people were subsequently killed by someone who read the book and followed its instructions.

At first, Smolla did not want to represent the families of the murder victims who were suing the publisher, because the suit challenged his long-held beliefs about the First Amendment.
He changed his mind after deciding that the First Amendment could not be used as a shield to publish a book about how to be an assassin.

Just before the case was to be tried, the insurance company representing the agreed to a multimillion-dollar settlement.

Smolla also has appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court to defend the rights of a Ku Klux Klan member who burned a cross in public, a violation of Virginia law.

His argument was that cross-burning is protected by the First Amendment.

In a recent interview in the law school magazine, Smolla, who became dean July 1, talked about the two cases.

"They defined the boundary between what I thought was speech that was highly offensive but still protected in the cross-burning case, and speech that crossed the line from merely being offensive to being physically harmful."

— Richmond Times-Dispatch

Broadbent heads VGS, Library of Virginia

Peter E. Broadbent Jr. has been elected chair of the Library Board of the Library of Virginia. Broadbent also chairs the Virginia Genealogical Society.

He was appointed to the Library Board by Gov. George Allen in 1996, and reappointed in 2002 by Jim Gov. Gilmore.

VGS and the Library of Virginia are Coalition members.

Early VCOG adviser, Millsaps, honored

William H. Millsaps Jr., vice president and executive editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, recently was named to the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame.

A former managing editor, Millsaps began as a sports writer with the Richmond paper and was an 11-time winner of the Virginia sportswriter of the year award.

In 1995-96, he served on a steering committee that organized what would become the Virginia Coalition for Open Government.

Also elected to the hall of fame was Dr. Nelson D. Lankford, editor of the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, the quarterly journal of the Virginia Historical Society.

A published author, Lankford's most recent book is, "Richmond Burning: The Last Days of the Confederate Capital."