Transparency News 6/28/16

State and Local Stories

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday overturned the bribery conviction of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, saying that while his acceptance of more than $170,000 worth of gifts and loans may have been “distasteful,” it didn’t violate federal law — a ruling that is not expected to have far-reaching effects on public corruption cases.
Washington Times

The Portsmouth City Council violated the Freedom of Information Act in the way it fined Councilman Bill Moody $1,500 for revealing the topic of an upcoming closed session meeting, a judge has ruled. A Jan. 12 letter informing Moody of the fine – which was distributed during a closed session and signed by five out of seven council members – required a vote in front of the public, Circuit Judge Catherine Hammond ruled Friday. No voting can occur in closed session, or by secret ballot, Hammond wrote, citing Virginia law. Moody’s attorney, Kevin Martingayle, said any fines the court levies against the city would be decided later. Those who signed the letter could each face a fine of $500 to $2,000 based on the statute, with the money going to the State Literary Fund.
Virginian-Pilot
Opinion

Legislation meant to close a loophole blown into Virginia's Freedom of Information Act by a court decision last year goes into effect on Friday. House Bill 817 and Senate Bill 494, which are identical, require government agencies to release as much of a document as they reasonably can under FOIA, redacting information not covered by the act, as opposed to withholding the entire document.
Daily Press
(Note: VCOG has posted the new version of the law, with all amendments made during the 2016 General Assembly session highlighted.)

When Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced that he was restoring the political rights of about 206,000 felons, it came as no surprise to New Virginia Majority, which had fliers already printed encouraging would-be voters to register immediately. The progressive activist group got an official invite days ahead of the April 22 news conference, and Tram Nguyen, the group’s co-executive director, had more than three weeks’ notice that the order was coming. Emails obtained by the Richmond-Times Dispatch through a Freedom of Information Act request show the McAuliffe administration planning for the announcement by inviting rights-restoration advocates and political allies. But the communications yielded little in the way of evidence of advance planning or consultation with the voter registrars, prosecutors or other officials who would deal with the mechanics of the order and its ramifications.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

News website GayRVA.com last week called out the McAuliffe administration for not allowing editor Brad Kutner to cover an event at the executive mansion celebrating LGBT Pride Month. The event is among numerous celebrations and cocktail gatherings at the mansion that are invitation-only and not on the governor's public schedule. Reporters don't usually ask to cover them; often we don't even know about them. Kutner received an invitation to the event as an individual. He considers himself a journalist everywhere he goes, so he showed up with his camera gear but was told to leave it outside. 
Virginian-Pilot

The assault case against Williamsburg Mayor Clyde Haulman was continued on Friday. Gary Shelly, Williamsburg landlord and long-time critic of the mayor, accused Haulman of getting into his face and grabbing his tie after City Council's first meeting in the Stryker Center on March 10, according to an article published by the Gazette on March 14. Haulman was charged with assault and battery on March 13. His case was scheduled to be heard in Williamsburg-James City County General District Court on Friday, but was continued. A new date has not been set yet.
Virginia Gazette

The U.S. Supreme Court may have settled the limits of a federal law that former Virginia attorneys general from both political parties say the Justice Department abused in order to convict former Gov. Bob McDonnell of corruption for actions they described as political commonplace. But the unanimous decision also may have reopened debate among state lawmakers on how to legislate ethical conduct in the shadow of behavior by McDonnell that even his strongest defenders acknowledge was “not pretty.” “There is a difference between what may be considered in hindsight as bad judgment and what can be considered to be a criminal act,” said state Sen. William M. Stanley Jr., R-Franklin.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

There is a life cycle to ethics reform in state government. A major scandal brings condemnation and with it the sense that stricter rules need to be put in place. Over time, however, those rules are generally either watered down or weakly enforced. After a while, old habits and ways of doing business reassert themselves. All of this is happening on fast forward in Virginia, where former Gov. Bob McDonnell was convicted of corruption for accepting $177,00 from a health product manufacturer wanting favors from the state.  The law they enacted last year, however, was dismissed by good-government advocates as an insincere exercise in saving face. In other words, the status quo was barely changed. Since the law was enacted, the loopholes have grown even bigger.
Governing

The Fairfax County Police Department’s Public Affairs Bureau has begun a partnership with CrimeReports.com, a Web site devoted to increasing community awareness of police-related events in the community. CrimeReports.com provides a convenient, Web-based platform that will allow county police to share local, police related information proactively with the community. Events reported to county police and stored in the department’s I/LEADS records-management system automatically will be published in an interactive map that is free and accessible to the public on desktop or mobile devices.
Inside NOVA

A special closed session of the Petersburg City Council drew both a small crowd and their ire Monday morning. Largely focused on the proposal from Richmond-based Fountainhead Properties to convert several warehouses owned by the city into housing for disabled veterans, the closed meeting drew more than two dozen people who had come to express their concerns about both the proposal, and the way the city government has been handling it. After two hours in closed session, the doors were opened, and Petersburg City Council took a roll call, and voted unanimously to take no action, before council members filed out of the room, without comment or questions from those in attendance.
Progress-Index


National Stories
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Knight Foundation announced 14 winners of the 2016 Knight News Challenge on Libraries. Each winner will receive a share of $1.6 million to develop their project to answer the question: How might libraries serve 21st century information needs? Launched in February, the challenge generated more than 600 proposals. The 14 winners are a mix of libraries, nonprofit organizations, academic institutions, small for-profit startups and museums. Five of the winners will receive awards ranging from $150,000 to $393,249. The other nine projects will receive $35,000 each to test their early- stage ideas.
Knight Foundation

The Connecticut Supreme Court has ordered a judge to hold another hearing to determine whether the names of some University of Connecticut animal researchers can be kept secret to protect their safety. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is seeking the names and grant numbers of UConn researchers found to have violated the national Animal Welfare Act or National Institutes of Health guidelines for the use of animals in research. The state Department of Administrative Services argued successfully before the state's Freedom of Information Commission that the information was exempted under Connecticut's FOI law.
WSHU

Known by its acronym, FOIA, the act is one of the most critical tools for any investigative journalist, providing legal recourse should access be denied and ensuring that, when a request is upheld by the courts, the government, and not the news media, must pay its legal fees. Yet one newspaper is excluded from FOIA under the law: Stars and Stripes. Indeed, it’s the only U.S.-focused news organization incapable of leveraging this powerful federal law. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Radio Sawa, Alhurra and Voice of America are likewise barred from using FOIA. But their audience profiles are of foreign nationals living in foreign lands. They’re fundamentally different from Stars and Stripes, which exists to keep U.S. troops well informed about their nation and their military.
Stars & Stripes


Editorials/Columns

Jamycheal Mitchell’s agonizing death in a Portsmouth jail last year has been investigated four times so far, and for all the results those inquiries produced they might as well not have happened at all. Perhaps the fifth time will be the charm. The State Police have now launched their own investigation. Here’s hoping it produces more than bureaucratic backside-covering and law-enforcement whitewashing. Unfortunately, the State Police investigation will be hampered by certain impediments, such as the fact that officials with the Hampton Roads Regional Jail allowed videotape taken outside Mitchell’s cell to be overwritten despite a request from his family’s lawyer to preserve it.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

What's also inexcusable is how casual state officials have been in letting Virginians know about the terrible job they did caring for one of our most vulnerable citizens. It took the Times-Dispatch a week and a half to get basic information, to include the date of the woman's death, her gender, and what she was charged with. And some basic facts — such as the woman's name — are still being withheld. The death of a human being in unusual circumstances is a grave issue, and more so if it takes place while in custody. It's not unreasonable, after all, to expect to make it out of custody alive. When a death occurs, government agencies must make every effort find out what happened and keep the public fully informed. Federal privacy laws, while sometimes cumbersome, are no excuse. There are ways to both give an accounting and protect privacy.
Daily Press

What McAuliffe clearly didn’t expect was a different line of attack – that his database of those who are eligible for restoration is simply a mess. Prosecutors – especially Republican ones – quite naturally went looking through that database to see who was in there. The general public can’t; you need to know Social Security numbers to look people up. We don’t have those; prosecutors with case files do. First they found some felons who are still behind bars on the list – including a murderer serving a life sentence. The governor brushed off the database as “a work in progress.” Oh. “With 206,000 names and 17 million bits of information, there’s going to be data entry problems,” he said. More prosecutors got curious – including the Commonwealth’s Attorney in Nottoway County. Terry Royall’s rural county in Southside includes a unique facility called the Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation. This is where sex offenders who have completed their sentence – but are still deemed too dangerous to release – are sent, under a process called “civil commitment.” Did the governor thank Royall for spotting this error and helping improve this “work in progress”? No. Instead he blamed the messengers, both Royall for finding the information and The Washington Post for reporting it. 
Roanoke Times