Category: Government Transparency
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Drip, Drip, Drip
The truth slowly emerges about what UVA leaders knew about the Health System scandal. by The Jefferson Council A bombshell disclosure in a recent FOIA proceeding reveals that UVA’s Board of Visitors, led by Robert Hardie, quietly retained Williams & Connolly (W&C) as “special counsel to the BOV and the Audit, Compliance, and Risk Committee…
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Dodging FOIA at VMI
Bob Morris, a Virginia Military Institute alumni activist, has filed suit in York County Circuit Court against VMI alleging the withholding, redacting, and even altering public records. Here follows a Chat GPT summary based upon a media backgrounder provided by The Cadet, a VMI student newspaper with which Morris is closely affiliated. — JAB Core…
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From FOIA Fight to Felony Embezzlement Charges
Restoration News holds Essex County (VA) School Board member accountable as grand jury indicts board member, superintendent, and finance director. by Victoria Manning An investigation by Restoration News has led to direct accountability for elected officials. When Essex School Board member Garlyn Bundy failed to produce documents requested by Restoration News under the Freedom of…
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Jeri Seidman Must Resign
Before her appointment as faculty representative to the University of Virginia Board of Visitors, the then-chair of the Faculty Senate manipulated the student council president to advance her campaign against the previous board. by the Jefferson Council UVA’s Faculty Senate has spent the better part of the last year delivering lectures on transparency, trust, and…
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Thirteen Brave Girls Came Forward…
and Fairfax County Public Schools filed zero Title IX complaints by Stephanie Lundquist-AroraOriginally published in IWFeatures This year, 13 brave girls at Fairfax High School stepped forward to tell administrators that Israel Flores Ortiz, an adult illegal immigrant from El Salvador who was enrolled as a junior at the school, sexually assaulted them during school…
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A Checkbook Proposal That Needs to Be Bounced
by Jon Baliles At a media event last Friday to talk about transparency, Richmond Mayor Danny Avula admitted that fixing the city’s check register — the one that is supposed to publish all city payments monthly but was turned off by the Stoney administration in 2019 and never restarted despite being required by city code — had…
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Fairfax Schools’ Stonewalling of Title IX Data Invites Mistrust
by Stephanie Lundquist-AroraRepublished with permission from IWFeatures Last month, the U.S. Department of Education announced that it is investigating Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) to determine whether the district discriminated on the basis of sex by failing to respond to multiple reports that Israel Flores Ortiz, an 18-year-old illegal immigrant enrolled as a junior at Fairfax…
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Cloudy Forecast for Richmond City Transparency
by Jon Baliles “A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.” — Dalai Lama Less than three weeks ago, we wrote about transparency’s obituary in RVA, but few would have ever guessed that City Hall was apparently not only serving as funeral director but also continued to keep throwing dirt on top…
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Sever the New Severance Policy
by Jon Baliles With all of the issues facing Richmond on a daily, monthly, and annual basis and limited funds to address them, Mayor Danny Avula has decided as City Council debates his new proposed budget, he also wants to update the city’s pay plan with a five-pound bag of sugar to sweeten and fatten…
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Virginia School Officials Should Not Be Their Own Regulators
by Todd Truitt As Virginia’s new Democratic Governor, Abigail Spanberger will soon shape the direction of public education statewide through five appointments to the Virginia Board of Education. Based on her longstanding focus on transparency and eliminating conflicts of interest, her administration can chart a different course with respect to a recent Virginia practice. The…
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How Much Power Do We Really Produce? None of Your Business!
A General Assembly subcommittee Tuesday derailed a simple energy transparency bill calling for an annual report on how well utility generation units perform. “The juice isn’t worth the squeeze,” sneered an environmental lobbyist just before the vote to table House Bill 766. It is solar “juice” that isn’t worth the squeeze, and the bill would have…
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What Is UVA’s Research Overhead?
And how much is driven by DEI? UVA won’t say. Open the Books has published a new report, “Transparency Crisis,” examining the percentage of research funding devoted to university overhead. Nationally, 50% to 60% of federal research grants go to overhead, which is meant to cover university and departmental infrastructure and support. “Recent reports,” states…
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Great Idea: Online FOIA Libraries
I’d love to see one of these for the University of Virginia! — JAB
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Chicanery & Circus at the Courthouse
by Jon Baliles There have been a lot of embarrassing moments in the history of city government, but one that will soon be in the Hall of Fame is taking place before our eyes, with the latest edition occurring last Tuesday in the John Marshall Courthouse. A trial that began more than 18 months ago…
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The Colonial Heights Scandal – the Tip of a Very Large Iceberg
The Boys from Lakewood by James C. Sherlock Most of them are quite young. They have a lot in common. They are friends in many cases. Some grew up together. More are related through blood or marriage. Many have worked together. Some are a second generation of their families in the nursing home industry; To…