Transparency News 7/21/15
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
State and Local Stories
First, the couple tried to get police to turn over records of their son's suicide. Their request was denied. So then they turned to the courts. On Monday, they were told no again. Circuit Judge James Clayton Lewis threw out their lawsuit, siding with police and a city attorney who argued that the law lets them prevent parents - and anyone else seeking records in a suicide case - from getting a copy of the file. The suit was filed this spring by Kevin McCarthy, whose son Sean died by a handgun injury a year ago.
Virginian-Pilot
The start of a new fiscal year brings more paperwork for area school divisions, and with these changes come contract amendments for superintendents. But arriving at a competitive salary isn’t easy, said Richard L. “Rick” Koontz Jr., chairman of the Shenandoah County School Board, and the decision is based on many variables, like education and experience. The salaries of public figures are publicized, Koontz said, “and everyone sees the changes that are made. [But] the general public doesn’t always see all that goes on in making those types of decisions.”
Northern Virginia Daily
The city of Danville launched a new online way for residents to navigate scheduled road closures. The new map — a joint venture of the Public Works and Information Technology departments — is available at http://gis.danvilleva.gov/roads. “Road closures are scheduled throughout the year, and we think this map is an innovative way of presenting that activity,” Tim Shortley, a geographic information systems programmer/analyst in the department, said in a news release issued Monday.
Register & Bee
National Stories
Two of six Sullivan County, Tenn., commissioners who met recently and discussed the 2015-16 budget have been warned by County Attorney Dan Street that they violated Tennessee’s Sunshine Law. “Of course, it wasn’t a meeting of the County Commission, but some commissioners did meet and there’s a statute in there that says any gathering of these members, even if it’s not a called meeting, if they are meeting to discuss and deliberate that they have to comply with the statute,” Street said following a regular meeting of the commission Monday. “If they just meet and, for example, are presented with facts in and of itself that’s probably not a violation, but if they do discuss and deliberate on issues that are coming to the County Commission then technically that’s a violation.” “At no point did I think I was doing anything wrong,” Commissioner John Crawford told the Bristol Herald Courier in a phone interview. “Dan has informed me that we can’t do that. I told him I’m sorry; I tell the public I’m sorry and I won’t do it anymore. ... Ignorance is no justification to the law and if I violated it, I violated it but it was definitely unintentional. We didn’t discuss anything or deliberate anything on how we vote or anything like that.”
Herald Courier
The Center for Public Integrity filed a federal lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission — an agency that exists to enforce and administer the nation’s campaign finance laws — for failing to release documents requested last year under the Freedom of Information Act. Last August, Center for Public Integrity senior political reporter Dave Levinthal filed a FOIA request asking the FEC to provide “any and all scheduling documents and/or records” for the FEC’s six commissioners covering a period from Oct. 21, 2013, to Aug. 14, 2014. The request specifically asked for “calendars, schedules, emails and itineraries that list or account for commissioners’ meetings, whereabouts or travels when conducting government business or traveling to/from engagements or duties involving government business.” FEC officials last year indicated to the Center for Public Integrity that they’d release the requested documents before 2015 began. But it wasn’t until May 19, 2015, that the FEC produced an initial “interim response” to the Center for Public Integrity’s original request.
Center for Public Integrity
City of Detroit officials, including Mayor Mike Duggan, sometimes use private e-mail accounts to conduct the public's business -- a practice that concerns open records experts and one that has hounded Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign. Duggan explained his tolerance for city employees using private e-mail accounts for official business after the Free Press obtained records through the Freedom of Information Act showing Melvin Butch Hollowell, the city's top lawyer, using both his Gmail account and city-issued e-mail account to communicate with a Detroit International Bridge Co. executive during negotiations for the pending Riverside Park land swap. The city's e-mail policy prohibits workers from sending, receiving or forwarding "confidential or sensitive City of Detroit data and information through non-city of Detroit e-mail accounts." The policy, dated March 2013, specifically lists Gmail as an example of a non-city account.
Governing
Advocates have pressed for years to reduce the practice of isolating prisoners, citing enormous psychological and fiscal costs. Their call increasingly is being heard by both Democratic and Republican politicians. Advocates say at least 44 states and the federal prison system use some form of solitary confinement or segregation, a figure based on the number of states that have special “supermax” prisons, where the entire population can be held in isolation cells. Colorado, Maine and Texas have passed transparency bills to release numbers about segregation. But most states are not required to report such information.
Washington Post
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and other top DHS officials continued to access their personal email accounts from their work computers more than a year after the department banned the practice as a security risk, Bloomberg reported Monday — a revelation that raises more questions about the federal government’s shaky cybersecurity practices. DHS spokeswoman Marsha Catron confirmed to POLITICO that “some individuals” at the department had gotten exemptions allowing them to access personal webmail from work computers, though she did not confirm that Johnson was among them. She said the department has since revoked the allowances.
Politico
Editorials/Columns
In Virginia, if you want to know what the State Police found investigating the worst mass murder in U.S. history, or what the consultants Hampton taxpayers hired to look into a proposed aquatics center, or what Newport News council members had to say about the city manager's performance last year, you're out of luck. If you were a parent up in Staunton wondering about the financial management that allowed a school bookkeeper to embezzle thousands from an account holding student-raised funds for extracurricular activities, too bad. Wondering what happened when that Winchester council member was charged with illegally shooting a gun, or the costs Richmond thinks it needs to cover with higher water and sewer bills? Well, you get the picture. The FOIA council is a state agency that effectively serves as the point of contact for inquires about the commonwealth's open government laws. It answers questions, issues advisory opinions and, since last year, has been conducting a thorough review of the law. But we are concerned that the 12-member board leans too heavily toward public officials and lacks strong advocates for openness.We worry that its members, though well-intentioned public servants, are informed by their experience in government.
Daily Press
Earlier this year, our reporters broke important news about missing evidence in the Augusta County Sheriff’s office and deleted voice mails in the local Child Protective Services office. Public officials were not happy to share details about these embarrassing debacles, but they were forced to after journalists made Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for related documentation. Without FOIA, our staff could have never reported those stories. Unfortunately, Virginia’s laughably weak FOIA does not apply to enough people. Fortunately, the state appointed a Freedom of Information Advisory Council, which is in the middle of a three-year look at how FOIA should be reformed. The council’s recommendations are due Dec. 1, 2016, and it meets this week in Richmond. We hope the council recommends cutting many of the law’s 170 exemptions. Government isn’t supposed to be secretive. So far, the council has not acted with such boldness.
News Leader
State and Local Stories
First, the couple tried to get police to turn over records of their son's suicide. Their request was denied. So then they turned to the courts. On Monday, they were told no again. Circuit Judge James Clayton Lewis threw out their lawsuit, siding with police and a city attorney who argued that the law lets them prevent parents - and anyone else seeking records in a suicide case - from getting a copy of the file. The suit was filed this spring by Kevin McCarthy, whose son Sean died by a handgun injury a year ago.
Virginian-Pilot
The start of a new fiscal year brings more paperwork for area school divisions, and with these changes come contract amendments for superintendents. But arriving at a competitive salary isn’t easy, said Richard L. “Rick” Koontz Jr., chairman of the Shenandoah County School Board, and the decision is based on many variables, like education and experience. The salaries of public figures are publicized, Koontz said, “and everyone sees the changes that are made. [But] the general public doesn’t always see all that goes on in making those types of decisions.”
Northern Virginia Daily
The city of Danville launched a new online way for residents to navigate scheduled road closures. The new map — a joint venture of the Public Works and Information Technology departments — is available at http://gis.danvilleva.gov/roads. “Road closures are scheduled throughout the year, and we think this map is an innovative way of presenting that activity,” Tim Shortley, a geographic information systems programmer/analyst in the department, said in a news release issued Monday.
Register & Bee
National Stories
Two of six Sullivan County, Tenn., commissioners who met recently and discussed the 2015-16 budget have been warned by County Attorney Dan Street that they violated Tennessee’s Sunshine Law. “Of course, it wasn’t a meeting of the County Commission, but some commissioners did meet and there’s a statute in there that says any gathering of these members, even if it’s not a called meeting, if they are meeting to discuss and deliberate that they have to comply with the statute,” Street said following a regular meeting of the commission Monday. “If they just meet and, for example, are presented with facts in and of itself that’s probably not a violation, but if they do discuss and deliberate on issues that are coming to the County Commission then technically that’s a violation.” “At no point did I think I was doing anything wrong,” Commissioner John Crawford told the Bristol Herald Courier in a phone interview. “Dan has informed me that we can’t do that. I told him I’m sorry; I tell the public I’m sorry and I won’t do it anymore. ... Ignorance is no justification to the law and if I violated it, I violated it but it was definitely unintentional. We didn’t discuss anything or deliberate anything on how we vote or anything like that.”
Herald Courier
The Center for Public Integrity filed a federal lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission — an agency that exists to enforce and administer the nation’s campaign finance laws — for failing to release documents requested last year under the Freedom of Information Act. Last August, Center for Public Integrity senior political reporter Dave Levinthal filed a FOIA request asking the FEC to provide “any and all scheduling documents and/or records” for the FEC’s six commissioners covering a period from Oct. 21, 2013, to Aug. 14, 2014. The request specifically asked for “calendars, schedules, emails and itineraries that list or account for commissioners’ meetings, whereabouts or travels when conducting government business or traveling to/from engagements or duties involving government business.” FEC officials last year indicated to the Center for Public Integrity that they’d release the requested documents before 2015 began. But it wasn’t until May 19, 2015, that the FEC produced an initial “interim response” to the Center for Public Integrity’s original request.
Center for Public Integrity
City of Detroit officials, including Mayor Mike Duggan, sometimes use private e-mail accounts to conduct the public's business -- a practice that concerns open records experts and one that has hounded Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign. Duggan explained his tolerance for city employees using private e-mail accounts for official business after the Free Press obtained records through the Freedom of Information Act showing Melvin Butch Hollowell, the city's top lawyer, using both his Gmail account and city-issued e-mail account to communicate with a Detroit International Bridge Co. executive during negotiations for the pending Riverside Park land swap. The city's e-mail policy prohibits workers from sending, receiving or forwarding "confidential or sensitive City of Detroit data and information through non-city of Detroit e-mail accounts." The policy, dated March 2013, specifically lists Gmail as an example of a non-city account.
Governing
Advocates have pressed for years to reduce the practice of isolating prisoners, citing enormous psychological and fiscal costs. Their call increasingly is being heard by both Democratic and Republican politicians. Advocates say at least 44 states and the federal prison system use some form of solitary confinement or segregation, a figure based on the number of states that have special “supermax” prisons, where the entire population can be held in isolation cells. Colorado, Maine and Texas have passed transparency bills to release numbers about segregation. But most states are not required to report such information.
Washington Post
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and other top DHS officials continued to access their personal email accounts from their work computers more than a year after the department banned the practice as a security risk, Bloomberg reported Monday — a revelation that raises more questions about the federal government’s shaky cybersecurity practices. DHS spokeswoman Marsha Catron confirmed to POLITICO that “some individuals” at the department had gotten exemptions allowing them to access personal webmail from work computers, though she did not confirm that Johnson was among them. She said the department has since revoked the allowances.
Politico
Editorials/Columns
In Virginia, if you want to know what the State Police found investigating the worst mass murder in U.S. history, or what the consultants Hampton taxpayers hired to look into a proposed aquatics center, or what Newport News council members had to say about the city manager's performance last year, you're out of luck. If you were a parent up in Staunton wondering about the financial management that allowed a school bookkeeper to embezzle thousands from an account holding student-raised funds for extracurricular activities, too bad. Wondering what happened when that Winchester council member was charged with illegally shooting a gun, or the costs Richmond thinks it needs to cover with higher water and sewer bills? Well, you get the picture. The FOIA council is a state agency that effectively serves as the point of contact for inquires about the commonwealth's open government laws. It answers questions, issues advisory opinions and, since last year, has been conducting a thorough review of the law. But we are concerned that the 12-member board leans too heavily toward public officials and lacks strong advocates for openness.We worry that its members, though well-intentioned public servants, are informed by their experience in government.
Daily Press
Earlier this year, our reporters broke important news about missing evidence in the Augusta County Sheriff’s office and deleted voice mails in the local Child Protective Services office. Public officials were not happy to share details about these embarrassing debacles, but they were forced to after journalists made Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for related documentation. Without FOIA, our staff could have never reported those stories. Unfortunately, Virginia’s laughably weak FOIA does not apply to enough people. Fortunately, the state appointed a Freedom of Information Advisory Council, which is in the middle of a three-year look at how FOIA should be reformed. The council’s recommendations are due Dec. 1, 2016, and it meets this week in Richmond. We hope the council recommends cutting many of the law’s 170 exemptions. Government isn’t supposed to be secretive. So far, the council has not acted with such boldness.
News Leader
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