Transparency News 10/26/16

Wednesday, October 26, 2016
 

State and Local Stories
 

Tickets are on sale for the George Mason banquet lunch, present by the Virginia Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. The lunch is from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Riverwalk Restaurant in Yorktown. Daily Press Dave Ress will be honored with the 2016 George Mason Award. Ress has spent more than two decades in Virginia newsrooms. His efforts to press lawmakers and public officials on public information, records and transparency issues is matched by his willingness to share what he has learned. “His extensive knowledge of FOIA has been invaluable in his job for The Daily Press – but even more invaluable is David’s willingness to share this knowledge with reporters across the Commonwealth,” wrote Betsy Edwards in her nomination letter. “His commitment to open government will make a real difference in how the Freedom of Information Act in Virginia is applied in years to come.”
Eventbrite

Two weeks before Election Day, the Virginia Department of Elections temporarily blocked the registrar of the state’s most populous locality from posting to a statewide email list after the Fairfax County official strongly criticized the Virginia’s spotty computer system. On a state-administered listserv email group for registrars, local officials discussed problems they were seeing Tuesday morning with old absentee ballot applications showing up in their queues to be processed. At 8:50 a.m., Fairfax Registrar Cameron Sasnett sent a screenshot of absentee voter applications that he said showed up in the Fairfax system Tuesday morning, despite being submitted in August and September. “Where in the hell were these?!?!” wrote Sasnett, who also publicly criticized the state elections agency at a General Assembly hearing this month, according to emails that were obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Around 10 a.m., Sasnett said in an interview, he received a phone call from Elizabeth L. Howard, deputy commissioner of the state elections agency, informing him that his posting privileges were being suspended because of “inappropriate language.”
Richmond Times-Dispatch

The Robert Bobb Group took command of Petersburg’s beleaguered city administration Tuesday and installed one of its own as interim city manager, kicking off a shake-up welcomed by supporters and derided by detractors who questioned whether the City Council violated its charter in hiring the firm. The council voted on hiring the firm twice last week: first on Tuesday and again during a special meeting Thursday called for consideration of the contract and a forensic audit, on which city officials advised the council not to spend money, since a special grand jury investigation of city finances already is underway. The vote last Tuesday to approve the Bobb Group deal failed 3-3-1. By the council’s rules, reconsideration of an item must wait 30 days unless a motion to reconsider is made before the group adjourns. No such formal motion was made. City Attorney Joe Preston advised council members that the Thursday vote was acceptable and defended that decision in an interview this Tuesday, saying in part that “council has a right to conduct its business.” The vote last Tuesday was a tie and therefore no action was taken, Preston said. Three experts in parliamentary procedure who reviewed the exchange at the request of the Richmond Times-Dispatch disagreed with Preston’s interpretation of the vote.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Under the terms of the Bobb Group's contract with Petersburg, which The Progress-Index obtained on Tuesday through a Freedom of Information Act request, the Bobb Group will provide personnel to fill the positions of interim city manager and budget director, as well as an unspecified number of accounting positions. Company founder Robert C. Bobb will act as “project executive.”  One thing the contract document provided by the city doesn't mention is how much the city is paying for the company's services. 
Progress-Index
The hometown girl who forced this city to confront its epic budgetary crisis has lost her job as interim city manager — apparently.  Dironna Moore Belton’s hold on the job she coveted is a bit confusing. Petersburg Mayor W. Howard Myers sent Belton a letter Tuesday informing her that she was being sent back to the transit agency where she was working in March when the City Council tapped her for the interim city manager job. But the demotion took some other council members by surprise. Belton was the one who began probing city funding gaps and worked with advisers to uncover a shortfall of about $19 million that pitched the community to the edge of insolvency and caught the attention of Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D). Last month, she led the council to adopt drastic cuts to stave off default and avoid a shutdown of all city services. Petersburg is the only locality in Virginia with a junk-status credit rating. At least one council member contested the mayor’s dismissal of Belton, noting that the body had never voted on removing her and contending that the mayor had no authority to act on his own.
Washington Post



National Stories


Former Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane was sentenced Monday to 10 to 23 months in jail for orchestrating an illegal news leak to damage a political enemy, capping a spectacular downfall for a woman once seen as one of the state's fastest-rising stars.
Governing

Civil rights advocates filed a lawsuit in San Francisco on Thursday against the federal government in an attempt to get information about how many detained asylum seekers are denied parole and how such decisions were made. In the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at UC Hastings College of the Law and others want to know why fewer asylum seekers are being offered parole. The groups hope to get statistics from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the parole decisions for detained asylum seekers from 2010 to now and documents detailing the process for coming up with those decisions, the ACLU of Northern California said.
San Francisco Chronicle


Editorials/Columns

These are tough times for the nation’s dwindling press corps. Not only are newspapers and other news outlets struggling, but journalists themselves are vilified constantly. Donald Trump, for instance, gets some of his loudest cheers whenever he accuses members of the “crooked media” of being in the tank for Hillary Clinton. He’s not the first candidate to accuse reporters of bias, of course. Kicking around journalists is a popular political sport. Still, to unsung shoe-leather reporters across the country who dutifully cover courts, cops and city halls without agenda, prejudice or glory, these accusations sting. The most disheartening indictment of journalism isn’t coming from Trump’s fiery stump speeches. It’s unfolding quietly in a federal courtroom in Charlottesville, where a University of Virginia administrator is suing Rolling Stone magazine.
Kerry Dougherty, Virginian-Pilot

Virginia may not have swing state status anymore — the polls consistently give Hillary Clinton a significant lead in the Old Dominion — but we’re back in the national news nonetheless. Over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal reported something curious that hitherto wasn’t widely known: The No. 2 official in the FBI, deputy director Andrew McCabe, is the husband of an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the Virginia Senate. Jill McCabe last year challenged state Sen. Richard Black, R-Loudoun County. Why is this important? This Journal headline helps explain it: “Clinton Ally Aided Campaign of FBI Official’s Wife.” Or, to cut to the chase, did Gov. Terry McAuliffe funnel money to Jill McCabe’s campaign as a way to influence the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s e-mail server? That’s a pretty serious question with a complicated chain of events, so let’s unpack this piece-by-piece.
Roanoke Times
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