Transparency News, 3/24/2022
Thursday
March 24, 2022
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state & local news stories
With a marathon city council meeting set to take place Thursday evening amid a tug-of-war between City Council and the Staunton School Board over funding issues, many residents have shown interest in attending to make sure that their voices are part of the process. However, in early March, council approved a change in how the rules for speaking during Matters from the Public are presented shortly after the forced removal of a resident from council chambers earlier this year. So, whether you are headed down to City Hall or are planning to watch from home via Zoom, here’s a handy reference of what you can and cannot do while speaking during Matters from the Public. DO: Speak your mind about your opinion about council’s performance within your given five-minutes. DO NOT: Expect City Council to respond during your statement
News Leader
The emotional vortex swirling around the Hanover County School Board’s handling of transgender student policies over the past six months continued Wednesday night, though this time the messages were directed at the county’s Board of Supervisors. Hanover’s school board is one of 16 appointed school boards among the state’s 133. The intention with Wednesday night’s showing was to ratchet up the pressure on the school board members — or to offer support for them — by going directly to the supervisors who put them in their seats. That sentiment was noted by Supervisors chair Angela Kelly-Wiecek, who addressed the audience ahead of the public comment time. She explained that she and her fellow supervisors have received lots of emails ahead of Wednesday’s meeting. The emails either asked the Supervisors to remove school board members, she said, or to demand that the supervisors direct school board members to take certain actions. While they do appoint school board members, “under state law, the board of supervisors does not have any power to compel the school board to act in a certain way or to simply remove a school board member,” she said. Kelly-Wiecek added that the supervisors cannot seek removal of school board members simply because they don’t agree with a school vote or a policy decision.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
stories of national interest
The New Jersey Supreme Court decided earlier this month that the public has a broad right to access certain information about serious police misconduct under common law, a landmark ruling that stands to deter police abuse and lays out a novel pathway to improve police accountability in other states. The court on March 14 held 6-0 that the Union County Prosecutor’s Office must release an internal affairs report that found the director of the Elizabeth Police Department had made racist and misogynistic comments about his staff over the course of many years. James Cosgrove, the former civilian head of the department for more than two decades, resigned in 2019 soon after the investigation was completed.
Reuters
editorials & columns
Campuses across America remain locked in a student debate over Israel’s treatment of Palestine. Some university students now empathize with the Palestinian cause in ways they did not in the past. To the extent that the discussion of the Arab-Israeli conflict surrounds charges of intimidation and denial of civil and property rights to Palestinians, the debate is credible. Refusing to hear both sides risks inappropriate, perhaps even unconstitutional, censorship. If former professor Steven Salaita’s speech consists of personal attacks on Jews generally, his speech is still worth hearing to prove his prejudice. It is also worth publicizing the fact that Salaita lost two university professorships because of his anti-Semitic statements. What matters most, though, is challenging opinions with facts. So Virginia Tech students should push back hard on Salaita. Just don’t push him off the podium. Likewise, denying former Vice President Mike Pence the right to speak will make him a victim rather than a perpetrator of racist revisionist history and homophobia. Suppressing his speech puts censors in the same camp as Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
The Daily Progress
