Transparency News 10/19/16

Wednesday, October 19, 2016
 

State and Local Stories

 
Bristol Virginia leaders expect to fill Jim Steele’s City Council seat by the middle of next month. The four remaining members of City Council met Tuesday to formally accept the resignations of Steele, who is the city’s vice mayor, and City Attorney Pete Curcio, both of whom announced their plans last Wednesday. Steele’s departure is effective Oct. 31 and Curcio gave city leaders until Dec. 1. They met in closed session for more than 40 minutes to finalize the process. 
Herald Courier



National Stories


In a decision First Amendment experts have dubbed “outrageous,” a Contra Costa, California, Superior Court judge jailed a San Ramon man for writing about his divorce on the internet — even though his writings were based on material publicly available in court files. The judge, Bruce C. Mills, insisted in his decision that “matters that are put into court pleadings and brought up in oral argument before the court do not become public thereby” — a position that lawyers say fundamentally misunderstands the nature of court records. The information became publicly available in court documents when it was filed without seal by his ex-wife, and in an online appellate court decision upholding the order. As a result, “the cat is out of the bag and the general presumption that publicly filed documents may be read by all carries the day,” said Floyd Abrams, considered among the top First Amendment lawyers in the United States, in an email to this newspaper.
East Bay Times


Editorials/Columns

None of us would ever want to go through what the parents of Sean McCarthy, a 27-year lieutenant in the Navy, went through after he was found dead in his Virginia Beach apartment in 2014. And no Virginian should accept the refusal of the Virginia Beach police to let the family see the records of their investigation. It was inhumane, arrogant and completely contemptuous of the right of Virginians to see the quality of work their public servants do. So, too, was the response of Virginia police departments to the modest humanitarian proposal of state Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax. A good half-dozen trotted up before the state Freedom of Information Advisory Council on Tuesday to object to Sen. Surovell's proposal to require police to release results of their completed investigations of unattended deaths to the most immediate next-of-kin.
Daily Press

The clerk of Lincoln Township, Michigan — a small township near the tip of the Thumb — publicly criticized a citizen for filing a Freedom of Information Act request. The Huron Daily Tribune reports: Clerk Irvin Kanaski also called upon township residents at Monday night’s meeting to chide Arlene Schipinski for seeking the information surrounding a $1,100 private donation to the township’s legal fund. Kanaski also told other citizens to call Schipinski and tell her to “please stop wasting our money with her frivolous freedom of information requests.” Kanaski’s criticism of and behavior toward Schipinski is wrong for at least two reasons. First, it is inappropriate for a government official to use a public meeting to urge the harassment of a private citizen.  Second, state FOIA law allows public entities to charge citizens for the cost of gathering, printing and sending information sought in a FOIA request. The township did not have to waste time or money on this.
Mackinac Center for Public Policy

 

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