At the suggestion of council member Tom Moncure, a subcommittee was appointed to study the possibility of reorganizing FOIA's 87 records exemptions into smaller categories.

Virginia has followed a model opposite from the federal FOIA, which has only a handful of exemptions, but those are riddled with subparts and exposed to broad interpretation.

Virginia's exemptions are narrowly drawn to apply to a specific agency or a specific type of record.

Moncure said the act needed to be more user-friendly. He also said a reorganization could be environmentally friendly if the exemptions were renumbered in such a way so that the entire list of exemptions would not have to be reprinted each time the legislature sought to add, delete or modify an exemption.

Council member Bill Axselle cautioned the group not to allow for current exemptions to be unwittingly expanded in the reorganization process.

Moncure, Axselle and E. M. Miller were named to the subcommittee, which will meet Aug. 27 at 10:30 a.m.

A second subcommittee will consider whether and how to study the Commitment Review Committee for sexually violent predators. Senate and House bills in 2003 relieved the commission from FOIA altogether.

Prompted by a proposal from the Virginia Press Association, the subcommittee, led by Moncure and John Edwards, will address bringing the committee under FOIA, but with exemptions for certain of its records and meetings.

That subcommittee will meet Aug. 14 at 1:30 p.m.