Transparency News 6/28/17

Wednesday, June 28, 2017



State and Local Stories
 
 
 
The FOIA Council has moved out of the old General Assembly Building into its temporary quarters in the Pocahontas Building. The new  address is 900 East Main St., 10th Floor, Richmond, Virginia 23219. Additionally, the council no longer has a local Richmond number for the FOIA Council, but the toll-free number remains the same: 866-448-4100.
 
Petersburg Treasurer Kevin A. Brown once again found himself in the crosshairs of city officials Tuesday as Mayor Samuel Parham called for his resignation from the steps of City Hall. Brown, 54, stood quietly by as Parham and City Councilman Charles Cuthbert asked that he step down “for the good of the city.” The news conference was called Tuesday afternoon after media reports of alleged financial improprieties involving Brown’s office trickled out.
 
Chesapeake School Board members will soon be able to call into meetings they can't physically attend, a practice that's permitted by state law. The board unanimously approved the policy as part of the consent agenda at its meeting Monday night. Virginia law allows any member of a public body to attend meetings remotely, but only on rare occasions. Such participation is limited to twice in a calendar year – in emergencies or when there’s a personal matter. Even then, a reason for the physical absence must be made public. Chesapeake is the last school board in South Hampton Roads to adopt the attendance policy. However, remote participation is uncommon.
 
Augusta County officials have cited a need to save money and redeploy their resources more strategically in their decision to close the Company 10 fire station — but that's not the real reason, says one member of the board of supervisors. "It wasn't for that — it was for getting back at Staunton for not voting on the courthouse," says Michael Shull, the only supervisor on the board that voted against closing Company 10.
 
Virginia’s highest court will consider a challenge to police’s practice of keeping data from automated license plate readers. The Washington Post reports that the Virginia Supreme Court will hear the case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in Fairfax County, where police keep license plate data for one year. Police say the data is crucial to help find missing people and stolen cars and solve other crimes. But critics say keeping the data past a short period of time presents privacy concerns.
 
The Front Royal Town Council may have broken its own meeting rules Monday when it tried to go behind closed doors. The council adopted its meeting agenda before addressing the topics on the slate. The agenda included a closed session to discuss one topic: Town Manager Joseph Waltz’ salary and performance (The council had announced his appointment to the position earlier this month.) Council can voluntarily discuss this in closed session as a personnel matter exempt from public disclosure under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. At the end of the open portion of the meeting, Councilman John Connolly made a motion for members to enter into closed session to discuss Waltz and additional topics.
 
Traveling to Lynchburg College for a school board retreat didn’t sit well with all Halifax County School Board members Monday night. As trustees attempted to set a date for an upcoming retreat with new Superintendent Dr. Mark Lineburg, conversation sparked about spending and transparency. “I think that my concern as a board member, and not that I necessarily agree that this should be a concern, but a lot of times the public looks at it as the board not being transparent when we do something like that. I don’t think that’s been in any means the message of this retreat. I think the retreat was for us to work as a board, but I know how the community looks at it too,” said ED-3 Trustee Kim Farson. ED-8 Trustee Walter Potts added, “Transparency has nothing to do with this retreat because this retreat in itself is not an open meeting. We’re not going to pass anything at that time.”
(NOTE: a retreat is still a meeting subject to FOIA’s rules, regardless of whether they will be passing anything or not, as long as they are discussing public business.)



National Stories


A group of 31 activist organizations are urging lawmakers to take out language in the fiscal year 2018 defense policy bill that, if enacted, would exempt the Pentagon from releasing certain documents that until now were accessible under the Freedom of Information Act. In a June 26 letter, the organizations call on the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Armed Services committees, as well as those committees with jurisdiction over the Freedom of Information Act, to raise concerns that language in the FY-18 defense authorization bill would "undermine the FOIA, creating an unnecessary and overbroad secrecy provision at odds with FOIA's goal of transparency and accountability to the public." While the language would exempt the Pentagon from disclosing "information on military tactics, techniques, and procedures, and of military rules of engagement" from any FOIA requests, due to broadly defined key terms, the group's letter highlights that the provision would exempt the Pentagon from disclosing much of the information and documents it creates.
Inside Defense

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin filed a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times Tuesday in a federal court in Manhattan. Palin, a former vice presidential nominee, says the newspaper published a statement about her in an editorial earlier this month that it "knew to be false." The editorial, which was corrected the next day, linked one of Palin's political action committee ads to the mass shooting in January 2011 that severely wounded then-Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords. Lawyers for Palin say The Times "violated the law and its own policies" when it accused her of inciting the 2011 attack that killed six people.
NPR



Editorials/Columns


During my (nearly) four years with City Accelerator, the effort to encourage innovation in government has involved more than two dozen cities, including those offering proposals and those that went on to become participants. As a group, this collection of very different and diverse communities has explored a broad range of topics and initiatives. By any measure, it’s impressive.  Looking back over the course of the work and in a somewhat personal attempt to sum things up, please permit me to offer the following thoughts and observations.
Ron Littlefield, Governing

 

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