Transparency News 6/25/15

Thursday, June 25, 2015



State and Local Stories


Governing discussed concerns cited by Nathalie Molliet-Ribet, deputy director of the state's Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, about the common use of spreadsheets to hold data. "It's easy to replace numbers but you lose history," she said. Sometimes, an agency might want the older number to check a trend, or look for outliers in data or recognize that the change matters – as when, in an example Governing gave, the number of jobs to be created in an economic development deal drop from 300 to 100. Governing based its report on a telephone survey with more than 75 officials in 46 states. Some 69 percent said they ran into bad data either "frequently" or "often." None said they rarely had trouble with bad data.
Daily Press

PORTSMOUTH Mayor Kenny Wright announced on Tuesday that the City Council would hold closed meetings at an undisclosed location within 15 days to interview city manager candidates. "As you all know, the City Council has been recruiting for a city manager," Wright said Tuesday. "During this open session of council we would like to announce that closed meetings will be held at an undisclosed location within 15 days hereafter for the purpose of interviewing candidates for Portsmouth's chief administrative officer." FOIA experts say the council's plan is within the law. "Yes, if they have properly announced that they are going to go into closed meeting to interview for chief administrative officer, they then don't have to disclose the location or do any further announcements when they are doing it within 15 days thereafter," said Alan Gernhardt, staff attorney for the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council. Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, agreed. The code section (Virginia Code 2.2-3711 B) Wright referred to in making the announcement applies only to the chief administrative officer position, she said.
Virginian-Pilot


National Stories

"Hear me, folks, you don't need money to be wealthy. I am penniless right now. I don't even have enough money to buy a postage stamp to send my children a letter. Yet, I am wealthy, for I am in Christ." This message is one that might be delivered from pulpits by evangelical preachers in churches across the country. But this written interpretation of Romans 10: 8-9 -- a New Testament passage saying those who accept Jesus Christ as the son of God will be saved -- was delivered from the Penobscot County Jail by an inmate, Randall Daluz, who was convicted of triple murder. While inside the jail last September, Daluz started his website, The Journal of a New Creation. He doesn't have access to the Internet. The wife of his spiritual advisor created the site and takes and transcribes Daluz's longhand religious writings and posts them for him under his name. This practice is not against jail rules. But once he is sentenced and moved to the Maine State Prison in Warren, Daluz's website writings will challenge a recent policy by the Maine Department of Corrections that has forbidden inmates from publishing their work. The policy, instituted by former corrections commissioner Joseph Ponte in 2014, is questioned by civil libertarians and free speech advocates as violating inmates' rights to freedom of speech and religion. Daluz's writings also are being questioned -- by the family of his victims. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Marchese, who prosecuted Daluz, said the victims' families have been told about the website.
Governing

 

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