Transparency News, 12/29/2022
Thursday
December 29, 2022
state & local news stories
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Austin Lee Edwards, the cop who “catfished” a 15-year-old Riverside girl and killed her grandparents and mother before taking his own life, used his own father as one of three character references on his application for a job as a sheriff’s deputy. Edwards signed on with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office in rural Virginia weeks after resigning from a nine-month stint with the Virginia State Police. He killed the family in Riverside, Calif., nine days after beginning work in Washington County. Edwards used his father, a close friend and his Virginia State Police field training officer as references when applying to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, according to his employment application, which The Times obtained through a public records request. In an interview, Washington County Sheriff Blake Andis declined to specify how his department vetted Edwards. Andis said his office ran Edwards’ name through law enforcement databases, but declined to specify which ones. Andis told The Times that Edwards did not disclose his 2016 mental health incident to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office. The 2016 incident and Edwards’ subsequent detention are referenced in an Abingdon, Va., police report that experts say should have turned up in many standard background checks.
Los Angeles Times
Norfolk city officials deviated significantly from the guidelines set forth in its own selection process when it began negotiating with a developer to redevelop Military Circle mall earlier this year, The Virginian-Pilot has confirmed. The city’s Economic Development Authority, which owns the mall, issued a “request for proposal,” known as an RFP, in 2021 seeking formal proposals to redevelop the site. It set clear guidelines for how the authority and the city would evaluate each proposal and make a final selection, including a detailed method to score and rank each proposal by a review committee. But the scoring was never done. A review committee was never formed. And the selection of which development group will win the massive redevelopment project has taken an unusual route. Instead, the City Council decided behind closed doors who it wanted for the project. The council voted 8-0 in closed session earlier this year to begin negotiations with Wellness Circle, which submitted a $1.1 billion proposal to remake the 75-acre site with a 200-room hotel, more than 1,100 new housing units and a 16,000-seat arena. City Manager Chip Filer confirmed in an interview with The Pilot the formal scoring and ranking process never happened. Asked for a reason why, he said City Council members — not a review committee — scored the proposals “in their heads,” and took into consideration factors that a formal score would have measured. When asked to explain why no scores were created, Authority Interim Director Sean Washington would not answer the question. Instead, he repeatedly pointed out the authority was legally allowed to deviate from the process.
The Virginian-Pilot
stories of national interest
"In a note that came with the records released last week, DeSantis administration officials said the failure to initially release the records was an oversight because Keefe was using a private email account."
When journalists at The Frontier, an Oklahoma-based nonprofit news outlet, investigated the suspicious 2019 death of an inmate at the Pottawatomie County jail, surveillance video from inside the facility seemed to be the best way to determine what happened. But when the outlet requested the video footage through the state's Open Records Act, the jail refused to comply. The prospect of a costly legal battle for public records can be a deterrent for many journalists and news outlets, especially during an era of newsroom budget cuts and more defiant government agencies. But in 2020, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press hired a Tulsa-based lawyer to provide free legal support for Oklahoma journalists and news outlets. Kathryn Gardner, the RCFP's attorney, represented The Frontier in a lawsuit against the Pottawatomie County jail. This month, the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals upheld a ruling that the jail video footage was public and should be given to The Frontier. Over the last two years, Gardner has assisted in 11 lawsuits seeking public records. She also has consulted journalists before publishing sensitive information and issued dozens of letters reminding government officials of their obligation in responding to records requests.
The Oklahoman
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ top safety official helped write language that helped a former legal client secure a state contract to oversee a controversial program to fly migrants from the southern border to Martha’s Vineyard. In the process, the official, Larry Keefe, used a non-public email address that made it appear that emails were coming from “Clarice Starling,” the main character from “The Silence of the Lambs” novel. The newly released records show that Keefe, who served as a U.S. Attorney in the Trump administration, used encrypted messaging apps and a private email address from “Clarice Starling” when communicating with James Montgomerie, CEO of Vertol Systems, a Destin, Fla.-based company the administration paid at least $1.5 million to coordinate the migrant flights. The new records were not released as part of an initial request from the Florida Center for Government Accountability, which is suing the administration over the slow release of public records related to the migrant flights. In a note that came with the records released last week, DeSantis administration officials said the failure to initially release the records was an oversight because Keefe was using a private email account, not his state email account.
Politico
