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“Have any of you ever been involved in a legal dispute and gone to court? Did you invite opposing legal counsel into your discussions with your attorney? Did you lay out your plan as to how you’re going to win in front of opposing counsel? Of course you didn’t, and I’m not either.”
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A Suffolk School Board member is speaking out about open committee meetings and what she perceives as unfair treatment against her by other board members — and has hired an attorney. There is an ongoing “myth,” as Story called it, that if only two members of a body are appointed to a committee, it can be a closed meeting. In reality, the state’s Freedom of Information Act says that standing committees of a public body are to be open meetings. The misconception about two members comes from a different part of the Act stating that two members can get together informally and talk about public business, but three or more would require a public meeting. Megan Rhyne, executive director for the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, agreed. She noted that the definition of a meeting is three or more members of the body, or a quorum if less than three. “If they have a two-member subcommittee, then a quorum is two people,” she said. “Those meetings need to be open.”
Suffolk News-Herald
City of Richmond departments routinely circumvented procurement rules for small purchases, limiting competition for public business, according to an audit released Tuesday. City policy requires departments to seek multiple bids for goods if the cost exceeds $5,000. But as many as 1 in 5 purchase orders city auditors reviewed during the last fiscal year did not comply with the guidelines, leading to what are called split purchases. The auditors reviewed 26,540 purchase orders departments approved totaling $404.5 million during the fiscal year that ran from July 1, 2017, through June 30, 2018. Of those, 22,920 totaling $27.1 million were for $5,000 or less.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Kate Nixon was a fixer. As a supervisor in the public utilities department for a decade, she solved problems for the city and was described as logical and level-headed. So when she told her husband, Jason, that she had concerns about two of her co-workers, he knew it was serious. She didn't like to be around DeWayne Craddock, a fellow engineer — he gave off "real bad vibes" and she'd had to write him up several times for issues with performance and attitude. They both worked on the second floor of Building 2 in the Municipal Center. Nixon wants the city to release the gunman's records because he knows there are disciplinary files his wife wrote starting a year and a half ago. Nixon believes the shooter was told to leave his job. City officials have released the gunman's resignation email sent the day of the shooting, which is brief and cites "personal reasons" for quitting. The recipient of the email and the exact times of the exchanges were redacted by the city, citing personnel exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act. Those exemptions are optional, meaning the city is choosing not to release the information.
The Virginian-Pilot
During his first regular Front Royal Town Council meeting on Monday, interim Mayor Matt Tederick detailed how he thinks the local government should deal with the fallout from the alleged $21 million embezzlement from the Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority. He said the council and Board of Supervisors should discuss the EDA’s “dissolution” at a joint meeting and “get back to the basics” by re-focusing on the government’s true role. “Perhaps it’s time for our governments to consider bringing the marketing functions of the EDA in-house to whatever degree we should and can,” Tederick said. Also during that joint meeting, he asked that discussions be held regarding the formation of a “citizen commission” to evaluate the council, supervisors and EDA “to determine what went wrong and what went right.”
The Northern Virginia Daily
The Front Royal Town Council at its regular Monday cast a unanimous vote allowing the town attorney’s office to file a lawsuit against the Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority and “any other necessary parties to recover all moneys owed or will be owed” to the town, according to the motion authorizing the lawsuit. The town approved the lawsuit after entering a closed session for legal consultation. Interim Mayor Matt Tederick noted while some citizens believe that the council should never enter closed sessions, “I respectfully disagree.” He said the state code allows the council to do so for a variety of reasons and consultation with legal counsel is a “good reason.” “Have any of you ever been involved in a legal dispute and gone to court? Did you invite opposing legal counsel into your discussions with your attorney? Did you lay out your plan as to how you’re going to win in front of opposing counsel? Of course you didn’t, and I’m not either,” he said.
The Northern Virginia Daily
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