Transparency News 5/25/18

Friday
May 25, 2018

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state & local news stories

"Chief Alfred Durham will show the footage and provide an update."

The former head of Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport is shifting strategies — now going to federal court in his lawsuit against the Peninsula Airport Commission, several airport employees and the Daily Press. Former Executive Director Ken Spirito had initially filed a defamation lawsuit against the airport commission and the employees earlier this year in Williamsburg/James City County Circuit Court, and later sought permission to add the Daily Press as a defendant. In adding the Daily Press as a defendant. But before allowing the newspaper to be included, Circuit Court Judge Michael E. McGinty tossed the lawsuit in April on a motion from the commission’s attorney. McGinty ruled in part that the defendants did not act with “reckless disregard” for the truth, a crucial part of defaming a public official such as Spirito. Though the judge gave Spirito’s lawyer, David Littel, a chance to amend the suit to pass legal muster, he instead filed a nearly identical one Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Newport News. Spirito contends the newspaper libeled him by way of news stories, a front-page graphic and an editorial. 
Daily Press

Richmond police announced the department would release on Friday the body-worn camera and security footage from the fatal shooting of a Henrico County man earlier this month. Marcus-David Peters, a teacher in Essex County, was shot twice in the abdomen by Richmond officer Michael Nyantakyi on May 14. Peters was naked and unarmed. The department has scheduled a press conference at 11:15 a.m. Friday, during which Chief Alfred Durham will show the footage and provide an update on the status of the investigation into the shooting. Durham will also "make an appeal for additional information," a release said. Police said they will release the footage from the body camera of the officer who shot Peters as well as nearby security videos. 
Richmond Times-Dispatch

Prince William school board members took no vote to extend the contract of division Superintendent Steven Walts after his personnel evaluation Wednesday. While personnel matters are not public, school board member Willie Deutsch posted on Facebook that there was no vote after the closed-doors session. In previous years the board voted on a one-year extension and a 2.8 percent pay raise for Walts.
InsideNoVa

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s practice of blocking critics from his Twitter account violates the First Amendment -- a decision with ties to local public officials. The decision by Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York came in a case filed by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University on behalf of seven individuals who were blocked from the @realDonaldTrump account after they criticized the president and his policies. Earlier this month, the Knight Institute announced it would represent Brian Davison, a Loudoun County resident who was temporarily blocked from Loudoun County Chairwoman Phyllis Randall’s (D-At Large) Facebook page, as his case proceeds before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
The Loudoun Times-Mirror

stories of national interest

A new rule is going into effect next month that many believe will shed light on a controversial spending area for state and local governments: how much they owe banks for private loans. The rule, issued by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB), lays out standards for reporting these loans in government financial reports. Unlike public debt -- which is issued through the municipal bond market and subject to regular disclosure requirements -- disclosures about direct loans from banks are not regulated. So, up until now, governments revealed as much -- or as little -- as they wanted about their private debt.
Governing

The ACLU and a Kitty Hawk resident have asked a Wake County judge to order a North Carolina lawmaker to release correspondence to and from her office about a plastic bag ban. Kitty Hawk resident Craig Merrill and the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina sued state Rep. Beverly Boswell, a Dare County Republican, in January. They accused her of violating the state’s public records laws, after Merrill’s requests for information about who she had corresponded with about the plastic bag ban went unmet for more than nine months. The lawsuit could ultimately test the breadth of North Carolina’s public records law and whether lawmakers can shield from their constituents who they are communicating with and how they respond to them.
The News & Observer

Justice Department lawyers made a rare apology to a federal judge Wednesday for an “inadvertent oversight” that occurred in a freedom of information lawsuit involving President Donald Trump’s Washington, D.C., hotel. That “oversight” came after the government attempted to withhold the names and email addresses of various Trump transition team members in an ongoing Freedom of Information Act battle against ethics watchdog group American Oversight. Several of those names were already publicly listed on Trump’s website, greatagain.gov.
The National Law Journal

A trove of email correspondence between New York Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration and the consulting firm BerlinRosen released Thursday reveals the mayor’s disgust with the city's press corps. The emails show an angry and petulant mayor reacting to criticism of him dating back to his first year in office. Aides are shown attempting to devise strategies that would allow the administration to get its message out without relying on reporters. The mayor's wife, Chirlane McCray, proposed that “we create our own click-bait. Our own topical, lively, unconventional, sometimes fun, sometimes controversial content.”
Politico