Transparency News 4/4/16

State and Local Stories

Organizers of a recall effort seeking to force indicted city Treasurer Anthony Burfoot out of office said they turned in about 5,000 voters’ signatures Thursday afternoon. Norfolk’s voter registrar has to verify whether the organizers have collected the 4,352 valid signatures that would trigger a recall trial. Verification could take weeks.
Virginian-Pilot

A ruling issued Thursday by the Virginia State Corporation Commission will allow Virginia officials to keep annual business reports filed by auto-title loan companies under wraps, marking a major victory for the oft-criticized lenders. The commission, which oversees financial institutions in the commonwealth, said it’s not clear under state law if corporations enjoy the same rights as people when it comes to the protection of financial information. The case turned on whether state laws protecting the privacy of “personal financial information” should apply to national corporations, just as they would for any person.  The commission’s staff recommended that the records be released last year. But the three-member commission ruled on Thursday that that state law is not clear on the question. “After full consideration of the arguments on this matter, the Commission concludes that the term ‘personal financial information’ is ambiguous since it can be understood in more than one way for the purpose of this statute,” according to the ruling.
Center for Public Integrity

National Stories
​
A federal judge has rejected a request from three environmental groups seeking data from a survey the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency conducted of power plants and their vendors for the purpose of revising pollution rules under the Clean Water Act. Judge James Boasberg ruled that language in the Clean Water Act requiring data to be made publicly available does not displace or supersede exceptions to the Freedom of Information Act for confidential business information.
Reuters

Sangamon County (Illinois) Circuit Court Judge John Madonia has sided with Gov. Bruce Rauner in a lawsuit over disclosure of the governor’s appointment calendar, refusing the newspaper’s request for legal fees. The newspaper sued the governor last fall, one day after the attorney general’s office ruled that the governor’s appointment calendar is a public document. Illinois Times requested the calendar in the spring of 2015, after the governor’s office didn’t respond to questions about why Rauner departed early from a Holocaust remembrance ceremony at the Old State Capitol that included a speech by a death camp survivor. The governor provided a redacted copy of his calendar that didn’t include the names of people with whom he met.
Illinois Times

The ACLU sued the U.S. Department of Education this week for information about the racial impacts of its student loan collection policies and the private companies that collect the debts. Joined by the National Consumer Law Center, the ACLU's federal lawsuit claims the Department of Education is way overdue in responding to a 10-month-old Freedom of Information Act request for information about its monitoring of private collection agencies. The lawsuit cites several studies that found racial disparities in student debt: for instance, that black and Latino adults are almost twice as likely as white adults to hold student debt, and that 15 years after graduation, black students are five times as likely to default on such loans than white adults, while Latino adults are twice as likely.
Courthouse News Service 

Editorials/Columns

Jamycheal Mitchell died sickly and alone in a cell at the Hampton Roads Regional Jail. He was in the state’s custody, though certainly not its care, at the time of his death. This tragedy happened on citizens’ watch. The state’s judiciary, its mental health system and corrections facilities — all of which had a role in his case — operate in the public’s interest and on its dime. Therefore, a full accounting of what happened to the mentally ill inmate — the mistakes made, the people responsible, the changes made or planned as a result — needs to be a matter of public record.
Virginian-Pilot

We have a secrecy problem. This may seem odd to say during an era in which the most intimate details of individuals’ lives are on display. Yet government is moving behind closed doors, and this is definitely the wrong direction. In fact, I’m dismayed by how often public officials fight not to do the public’s business in public. And I’m not just talking about the federal government. City and town councils regularly go into executive session to discuss “personnel issues” that might or might not truly need to be carried on outside public view. And let’s not even talk about what can go on behind closed doors when it comes to contracting. At the state level, lawmakers exempt themselves from public records laws, underfund public watchdogs, and exempt lobbying expenditures from sunshine laws.
Lee Hamilton, News and Tribune

“Last year, I thought that there was a lot of fat in the budget that we were not taking an opportunity to scrub,” Portsmouth Mayor Kenny Wright told The Pilot. In referencing former City Manager John Rowe’s firing, the mayor noted the departures of a dozen city department heads and prominent employees in the past year, which he credited to City Auditor Jesse Andre Thomas. “That auditor has uncovered more stuff that you don’t know about,” Wright said. “That’s why a lot of those people aren’t here.” Wright intimated that Thomas, whose office has released no official audit, somehow provided information that engineered the departure of key officials and cast a shadow over those people. Bizarrely, Wright also referred to Thomas as “my auditor” and said his work couldn’t be made public. If Thomas is conducting research as part of his official duties, then it is a matter of public record and should be released. If there is malfeasance at City Hall by officials past or present, then let it be known. If those actions were criminal, the evidence should be submitted to the commonwealth’s attorney for her review.
Virginian-Pilot