Transparency News, 1/25/2023

Wednesday
January 25, 2023

There was no newsletter yesterday, Jan. 24.

state & local news stories

VCOG's annual legislative chart of FOIA and access-related bills

A House subcommittee that hears FOIA bills took up several bills on VCOG's watch list yesterday. You can watch the full meeting here(approximately an hour and a half).

Quick run-down.

• Yes to encouraging local governments to take electronic (credit card) payments for FOIA requests.
• Yes to requiring public bodies to post explanations about how they calculate FOIA fees.
• No to letting regional public bodies and local advisory boards to adopt policies allowing them to meet all-virtually as often as they want.
• Yes to more standardized public notice requirements.
• Yes to letting certain records that are confidential by law when held by other agencies remain confidential when they are transferred to the Library of Virginia for archiving (e.g., medical records).
• Yes to a slightly narrowed trade secrets exemption for the Fort Monroe Authority.
• No to increased access to files of completed police disciplinary complaint investigations.

The "yes" bills go to full committee for review this Thursday.

Some big bills for VCOG are being heard this afternoon in both Senate General Laws (bills on electronic meetings) and in Senate Judiciary (including one that would take "personal information," including addresses, of current and retired state and federal judges off of records databases).

You can watch either (or both) committees from this link.
 

* * *

The Virginia Department of Education has taken more than seven weeks to respond to several public records requests, ignoring a state law that sets a clear timeline for responding. They include requests submitted in late November through mid-December from a law professor, local news site The Roanoke Rambler and VPM News. Under state law, public bodies like VDOE have five business days to respond to requests. Officials can cite reasonable reasons for a delay and receive a seven-day extension. Anything beyond that requires sign-off from a judge or an agreement with the person or group requesting the documents. Spokesperson Charles Pyle said in a Monday email that the department made a “good faith effort” to respond to three VPM News requests dated Nov. 30, Dec. 7 and Dec. 12 “given recent staffing challenges and the volume of requests from you and other writers.” Pyle declined to say how many requests are overdue.
VPM

To increase transparency and trust — and also to decrease apparent skepticism — Blackstone Town Council is planning to record, live on video, opening all bids for Town projects. Blackstone for the past several years has recorded all Council meetings and committee meetings live on YouTube. They can also be viewed on the Town’s website. Mayor Ben Green told Council at its Jan. 10th meeting, “I’ve asked the Town Manager to include me in the bid openings. There have been some rumors, that maybe the optics weren’t exactly right. So to put it to bed, I want to witness these, and I believe we’re gonna make provisions to have it recorded.”
Courier Record

Dumfries Town Councilman Brian Fields gave an earful to a resident and former mayoral candidate who questioned the marriage of two town employees — the police chief and a fellow officer. Ebony Lofton, who mounted an unsuccessful bid to unseat Mayor Derrick Wood in November 2022, spoke at January 10, 2023, town council meeting. During her speech, Lofton called out the police chief Vernon Gaylen, who she said married officer Anna Torres, who reports to Gayle, late last year. Lofton frequently attends and speaks at Dumfries Town Council meetings and demands the transparent, responsible administration of town government for the town of about 5,700 people. One of them, Brian Fields, a former town police officer, fired back at Lofton, saying it is inappropriate to question the council about the police chief and the fraternization policy. “The finger is painted right back at you, the person who is leading the community.” Yes, goddammit, I am the real police. I worked my ass off cleaning up this community when I was on the police force,”  said Fields. Mayor Wood interjected and asked Fields to maintain an appropriate level of decorum. “I’ve got decorum. I’ve got all I need,” replied Fields. “We are doing a damn good job here… this is our community, our town. We are doing great,” Fields said of the town council. “We’ve been elected, re-elected, write-in elected, and elected again,” he added before standing up from his chair and temporarily walking out of the meeting.
Potomac Local

Montgomery County School Board Chairman Mark Cherbaka said Tuesday night that former Superintendent Mark Miear's recent comments about his dismissal are “regrettable.” Cherbaka read a statement about the situation at the start of a board meeting.“It’s regrettable that former Superintendent Miear has made such extensive and public comments about a Montgomery County Public School student,” Cherbaka said Tuesday night. “The board believes responding publicly to those comments to be both unlawful and inappropriate, not to mention deeply unfair to students.”
The Roanoke Times
Note: Illegal?

Arlington County Board members on Jan. 21 called it quits for the night, pausing public comment on Missing Middle housing/zoning changes for three days. Board members sat through about 170 speakers given two minutes each to make their case for or against the contentious policy changes. But at that point, as darkness had fallen on a meeting that began at 8:30 a.m., board members called a halt. About 18 people who had signed up for three-minute speaking slots, and were placed behind the much larger group of two-minute speakers, were still in the queue when proceedings were halted. Their testimony was to be heard (if they still desire it to be) on Jan. 24 in the evening.
Sun Gazette
 

stories of national interest

"Experts suggest that agency and program executives are missing out on capabilities that would help them manage and analyze massive datasets more effectively."

Former Vice President Mike Pence found documents marked classified at his Indiana home last week and he has turned them over to the FBI, a lawyer for the former vice president said in letters to the National Archives.
Reuters

Data, arguably the government’s most important resource, is growing exponentially — and increasingly more dispersed as agencies adopt decentralized networks. That’s leading agencies and organizations in highly regulated industries to look for tools capable of assuring the reliability and sourcing of data, especially when conducting an investigation or responding to a FOIA request. While agencies are used to managing large amounts of data, experts suggest that agency and program executives are missing out on capabilities that would help them manage and analyze massive datasets more effectively and tap into their data’s full potential.
State Scoop
 

editorials & columns

"Few things drive local government officials any crazier than that handful of residents who think the county or town not only work for them, but exclusively so."

Battles over the cost of researching and copying documents to fulfill Virginia Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests are among the oldest struggles related to the 55-year-old law, and those struggles aren’t likely to end anytime soon.  Such battles are waged across Virginia, sometimes by public officials who have come to feel their offices can be operated as private businessesrather than agencies whose primary purpose is service to the public.  That’s one side of the battle.  The other is the local gadfly. Few things drive local government officials any crazier than that handful of residents who think the county or town not only work for them, but exclusively so. They ask for records that are often obscure, are stored in multiple locations and can, indeed, require a lot of labor to copy.   Many — I feel safe in saying most — public employees in Isle of Wight and Smithfield make an honest effort to fulfill FOIA requests and they generally follow the law, which says a public body “may make reasonable charges not to exceed its actual cost incurred in accessing, duplicating, supplying, or searching for the requested records.”  The Virginia Coalition for Open Government takes a more pro-public position, as it should. VCOG, as one of its primary principals, believes that “record access should be provided at little or no cost to the citizen.”
John Edwards, The Smithfield Times