Transparency News 3/25/15

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

State and Local Stories


Should the same government agency that stands accused of shooting innocent people have the authority to prevent the release of information about those shootings? My first experience with restrictive state laws regarding press access happened just a few weeks ago, and given that we just celebrated Sunshine Week, perhaps there’s no better time to talk about the odd state of freedom of information access within the United States, and how much it varies between states. As a young journalism graduate out of the University of Miami, I learned all about FOIA requests in college and had the basic understanding that a reporter’s access to governmental information was different from state-to-state. But, up until recently, my only experience filling out FOIA requests came within the state of Florida, which famously has some of the most expansive open government laws in the U.S., making it a great state for reporters. In Florida, effectively all state records can be accessed and information regarding any state meeting is made available to reporters. This couldn’t be any further away from the reality in Virginia.
Watchdog.org

Not long before he became governor of Virginia, Democrat Terry McAuliffe received special treatment on behalf of his electric-car company from the now-No. 2 official at the Department of Homeland Security, according to a new report from the department's inspector general. McAuliffe was among several politically powerful individuals from both parties, including U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., seeking special visas for foreign investors through a program administered by the department. But Deputy Secretary Alejandra Mayorkas's intervention on behalf of McAuliffe's GreenTech Automotive company "was unprecedented," according to the report. The long-anticipated report did not find evidence of law-breaking. But members of the department's staff perceived Mayorkas's actions as "politically motivated," and the report concluded that he had "created an appearance of favoritism and special access."
Virginian-Pilot

Roanoke City Schools boldly spent nearly $1.2 million to empower every eighth-grade student to use technology by issuing all 940 of them brand-new laptops. Students without access to technology at home have had a particularly difficult time on the computerized writing tests, school officials said. But a computer is only at its most powerful when it’s connected to the wider world by the Internet. The school board heard during a pulse-check on the laptop initiative Tuesday night that although every eighth-grader has a computer to take home, some still don’t have a way to connect to them when they get there. “That is a significant burden to students at our school,” Stonewall Jackson Middle School Principal Christian Kish told the board.
Roanoke Times

Harrisonburg School Board Chairman Dany Fleming said Tuesday that he would resign following the threat of legal action by a group of city residents. Fleming’s eligibility to represent the city’s west district was called into question earlier this month when it was discovered that he lives in the east district. He announced his resignation one day after being served an application for a writ of mandamus by Steven Blatt, a city attorney who lives in the west school district. On Tuesday, Blatt’s attorney, S. Tarpley Ashworth Jr. of city firm Litten and Sipe, said seven residents had joined Blatt in his request for Fleming to vacate the seat. If Fleming did not resign, the group would have requested his removal by Rockingham County Circuit Court.
Daily News Record

The University of Virginia will institute a new pricing model that will raise tuition for incoming in-state students over the next two academic years but lower student debt caps. The Board of Visitors approved the plan in a quick vote — 13-1, with one member abstaining — on the same day it was publicly announced, agitating students who had come to protest rumored tuition increases. Former Rector Helen E. Dragas was the lone dissenter, while Allison Cryor DiNardo abstained. Two members — Dr. Edward D. Miller and Dr. L.D. Britt III — were not present. Dragas criticized the way the plan was announced. The university did not post the plan on the board’s website (it usually posts meeting materials ahead of time), which Dragas said is not in the spirit of transparency. Finance subcommittee chairman John A. Griffin replied: “We’re in compliance with board rules.” Visitors meetings do not have public comment periods, but Dragas said this meeting should have had some kind of period for student feedback. “We’re not allowing our students to talk,” she said. The majority of students in attendance were protesters who had heard rumors of looming tuition increases. Some students stayed in the hall, chanting, “Whose university? Our university!” as police and administrators kept them under control. Others came in for a silent protest, giving thumbs up or writing rebuttals to visitors’ comments on white boards. The protesters said the board passed the measure without notifying students. The board typically posts meeting materials — reports, summaries, charts and slideshow presentations — on its website ahead of time. The proposal was not among the documents posted online Tuesday morning. Board member DiNardo said she did not know what the complete plan was until Tuesday afternoon’s discussion. DiNardo, who later abstained, asked that the vote not take place until the second day of the meeting, which is typical board procedure.
Daily Progress

Red lights on the front of two strategically placed video cameras glowed Monday, capturing every word and nuance of the BVU Authority’s March board meeting. The brief, nearly 30-minute meeting is to be packaged and replayed on BVU OptiNet’s channel 3. It is scheduled to air three times today, at 7:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. It will be replayed in coming days. The board recently agreed to produce this experimental, one-time show and then gauge public reaction. “I think putting them on TV is a good thing so people can watch it and know what’s going on,” authority board of directors Chairman Ed Harlow said. “We have discussed this and about being more transparent for a number of reasons. I believe, in the past, a lot of the misunderstanding has come from not being as transparent as we could have been.”
Herald Courier

Fairfax County’s new police commission held its first meeting Monday, launching a six-month-long process to recommend changes to problems exposed by the 2013 fatal shooting of an unarmed man. The 37-member commission crowded inside a county conference room to lay the groundwork for ways to improve police-community relations, how information is relayed to the public and other concerns raised after county police officer Adam D. Torres shot an unarmed John Geer at his Springfield doorstep. “What this commission cannot be about is an investigation of a particular case, the John Geer case,” said Board of Supervisors chair Sharon Bulova, who created the commission in response to anger over how the county handled the shooting investigation. “We are not investigators.” Commission chairman Michael Hershman said he would divide the group into subcommittees that over the next several months will review reports and meet with other members of the public to delve into specific topics.
Washington Post

National Stories
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For the third consecutive General Assembly, a bill to make the University of Delaware and Delaware State University subject to Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) requests has been introduced. In 2011, House Bill 126 never made it out of committee. In 2014, House Bill 331 passed unanimously — but not in the form sponsors intended. Now, lawmakers are taking another crack at it. All three bills have sought to define the universities as public bodies, thus removing exemptions to FoIA requests. Enacted nationally in 1966 and in Delaware in 1977, the Freedom of Information Act opened up government, allowing citizens to submit formal requests for information.
Delaware.Newszap.com

A congressional panel on Tuesday released a video surveillance tape of an incident near the White House in which a government car driven by Secret Service agents appears to brush a barrier in an area where a suspicious package was being investigated. The tape was released by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, whose members angrily questioned Secret Service Director Joe Clancy about the incident and why additional videos were not preserved and made available to the panel. "My local Store 24 has a better surveillance system," Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., said at Tuesday's hearing.
NPR

The private heritage group that managed the Alamo, the site of the famed 1836 battle for Texas independence, has sued the state over what it says is an illegal attempt to take over some 38,000 rare books, letters, and artifacts it owns. The lawsuit filed by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, which had run the San Antonio site for more than century before being dismissed by the Texas Land Office earlier this month, claims the office "unilaterally declared" the state is the rightful owner of the valuable collection.
Reuters

C-SPAN is typically one of the less scintillating channels on television. With its near-constant broadcasts of speeches from obscure legislators and of congressional subcommittee hearing after endless congressional subcommittee hearing, it’s often most valuable as a nap soundtrack. But every once in a while, C-SPAN really comes through, like when its hosts interview public figures and journalists and then let Real Americans call in. This happened last week when one caller pretended to be the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. That event was not an aberration. C-SPAN gets weird, a lot. It’s the TV version of Internet comments, and it’s amazing.
Slate

Editorials/Columns

So as our local governments explain their budgets in the coming days and weeks, we would encourage citizens to be part of the process, to get involved and have their say. We'll give a few items to consider as you dig into these documents, as we urge you to play an active role in the discussion to come. Leaping into a public budget can be intimidating for those without experience in doing so. The projections often fill up hundreds of pages and feature enough numbers to give you flashbacks to math class. But, basically, the budget proposals city managers and county administrators are introducing now tell you how much they propose to charge you for government services. Want to get a good first sense? Look for any changes to the real estate tax rate (levied on your home and any other real estate), personal property tax rate (this is what you pay for your car) and in water, sewer, trash and stormwater fees. They're all usually found in the transmittal letter, or with the part of the budget that talks about revenue.
Daily Press

Judgeships shouldn't be patronage positions, yet that's what they've routinely become; after leaving elected office, state lawmakers themselves frequently end up years - or, in some cases, months - later working full time in the judiciary.
Virginian-Pilot