Transparency News 6/26/17

Monday, June 26, 2017



State and Local Stories

Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne says Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport officials must understand they are still cut off from state funds and need to meet with him in an open session to discuss guidelines for restarting that cash flow. On Thursday, the Peninsula Airport Commission adopted an $8.1 million budget that includes a capital improvements plan calling for $817,100 in state funds to help with projects. E. Renee Ford, the airport's director of finance and administration, said the commission plans to comply with all new rules and regulations that come with using that money. Officials will revise that plan if they don't get the state money they anticipate, Ford said.
Daily Press

A year ago, the western Loudoun community demanded the county deny a commission permit that would have allowed AT&T -- the world’s largest telecom company -- to build a 3.5-acre facility on the top of Short Hill Mountain near Lovettsville. For months, the community pressed the county and AT&T for answers about the proposal, a project many speculated and still believe is a data center or federal facility. The community pressure led AT&T to withdraw its application, and the Board of Supervisors voted to overturn the commission permit it sought on June 23, 2016. One year after AT&T abruptly withdrew its plans for the facility and the board overturned the commission permit, nearby residents continue to press for answers. “AT&T is in compliance with all county, state and federal regulations,” an AT&T spokesperson, Kate Mackinnon, told the Times-Mirror when asked the question. But with documents related to the site hidden from the public’s view and exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), many in the local community say AT&T’s assurances are not enough.
Loudoun Times-Mirror

Attempts by Dominion Energy to sway regulators in the Atlantic Coast Pipeline permitting process prompted a top official under Gov. Terry McAuliffe to notify the utility that state agencies would not heed those efforts. An April 19 letter from Molly Ward, Virginia’s secretary of natural resources, advised Dominion that state agencies involved in permitting for the proposed 600-mile line “will not base their decisions on requests or suggestions from an applicant.” The Roanoke Times obtained a copy of Ward’s letter among hundreds of pages in open-records requests filed with both the McAuliffe administration and DEQ. The governor’s office withheld about 20 records described as “working papers” and otherwise protected by executive privilege. DEQ withheld nine “email chains” it said were exempted either by attorney-client privilege or as governor’s working papers. “Working papers” refer to records prepared by or for a public official in the governor’s office for his or her personal or deliberative use.
Roanoke Times



National Stories
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A federal magistrate has fined Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach $1,000 for presenting misleading arguments in a voting-related lawsuit, but won’t permit — for now — the release of a policy memo Kobach prepared for President-elect Donald Trump. U.S. Magistrate Judge James O’Hara issued the ruling Friday in a lawsuit challenging a Kansas law requiring voters to present proof of U.S. citizenship when they register. O’Hara said Kobach and his legal team “made patently misleading representations to the court” about the memo Kobach was photographed taking into a Nov. 20 meeting with Trump as well as another document proposing changes to the National Voter Registration Act, better known as the motor-voter law.
Politico


Editorials/Columns


Free speech, virtually by definition, is intended to rise above mere political considerations. The right to speak out should be open equally to members of all parties and no parties — to all political viewpoints, social viewpoints, cultural viewpoints, religious viewpoints. It is a higher value than mere politics. What’s more, it is one of the fundamental elements that make politics possible.
Daily Progress