Category Archives: Transparency

Beach School Board’s Meeting Was Legal. But It Wasn’t Right.

Posted on June 17, 2021 by | 9 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Good news for elected officials who find the public’s presence at their meetings a pesky distraction, who give half-hearted, last-minute notice of meetings and then lock the doors to the building where the meeting is being held.

It’s all legal!

Yep, apparently Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act law has broad exemptions for what are considered “special meetings,” so the June 1 shenanigans of the Virginia Beach School Board members — who did all of the above — did not run afoul of the open meeting statutes, according to a judge’s ruling yesterday.

Neither did the fact that they were obviously trying to confuse the public by postponing and then cancelling meeting dates, which resulted in the happy accident of thwarting a scheduled rally protesting Critical Race Theory in Beach schools. Continue reading →

9 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), Transparency

Tagged

Beach School Board’s Clown Show

Posted on June 7, 2021 by | 5 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

It’s tempting to call the latest shenanigans by the Virginia Beach School Board a clown show.

I probably shouldn’t, though, since that insults the proud tradition of clowning and implies that there is something humorous about the board’s ham-handed attempts to circumvent open meeting laws and its quiet determination to infect the schools with Critical Race Theory. 

The Beach School Board is not funny. It’s behaving in a way that is profoundly undemocratic.

We wrote last week about the board’s suspicious “special meeting” held June 1.

Despite being set weeks earlier, it was held without the usual public notice and was not broadcast.

At 8:30 this morning in General District court, a judge will decide if — as School Board member Victoria Manning claims — this was an illegal meeting. (Then again, there may not be a decision. On Sunday afternoon Manning told me that it appeared the Board was spending tax dollars on outside counsel to represent the body and might ask for the case to be continued.) Continue reading →

5 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), Transparency

Tagged

Shhh! Don’t Ask! COVID-19 Equity Analysis Is for Governor’s Eyes Only

Posted on March 30, 2021 by | 11 comments

by Carol J. Bova

The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) blog posted March 16 that the department and the Virginia Department of Emergency Management (VDEM) would open community vaccination centers in Danville, Portsmouth, Petersburg and Prince William. “The sites were selected after the Virginia Department of Emergency Management conducted an equity analysis to determine the communities with the largest number of vulnerable populations and communities with the largest percentage of vulnerable population and greatest COVID-19 impact.” (See Steve Haner on March 26.) I sent a FOIA request to VDEM for a copy of the equity analysis.

While waiting for the VDEM reply, I wrote on Bacon’s Rebellion March 17 that VDH should target vaccination efforts to neighborhoods with high rates of poverty where COVID-19 risk factors were most likely to be found rather than basing the sites on VDH’s flawed virus statistics of racial demographics.

I received a response from VDEM denying my request. Continue reading →

11 Comments

Posted in Public safety & health, Transparency

Tagged ,

Odd Behavior by a Loudoun County Teachers / Parents Group

Posted on March 18, 2021 by | 26 comments

by DJ Rippert

Author’s note. There is a story circulating about a private Facebook group focused on Loudoun County schools that is keeping an “enemies list” of people opposed to Critical Race Theory (CRT) as it is being used in the Loudoun County Public Schools. The members of the group reportedly include teachers, parents, school board members and at least one prosecutor. Some within the group have reportedly gone so far as to seek hackers to compromise the websites of groups opposing CRT in Loudoun County.

I initially picked up this story from an article in The Bull Elephant written by Jeanine Martin. The story was titled, “Loudoun County teachers plot war of harassment against parents and others who disagree with racial curriculum.”  That article, published Tuesday, relied on information from Townhall.com and The Daily Wire. I was not sufficiently confident in those sources to either ask for permission to repost Ms. Martin’s article or to write my own summary. However, the story continued to gain traction yesterday and today in the conservative media  Fox News and The Washington Times have picked up on the story. Finally, there is a direct quote attributed to a spokesman for the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office (Kraig Troxell) stating, “The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office is aware of the situation and the information has been forwarded to our criminal investigations division to review the matter.” Given that, I believe there is something going on that merits the attention of Bacon’s Rebellion readers. Continue reading →

26 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Education (K-12), Politics, Transparency

Tagged , , ,

Democrats Propose Expanded Virginia Government Personal Information Collection, Integration and Dissemination

Posted on January 16, 2021 by | 32 comments

George Orwell

by James C. Sherlock

There are few things the Left desires more than government access to personal data on every citizen and everything he or she does. Virginia continues down that path.

Government Data Collection & Dissemination Practices Act Chapter 38 of Title 2.2 of the Code of Virginia (§ 2.2-3800 et seq.) reads in part:

B. The General Assembly finds that:

1. An individual’s privacy is directly affected by the extensive collection, maintenance, use and dissemination of personal information;

2. The increasing use of computers and sophisticated information technology has greatly magnified the harm that can occur from these practices;

3. An individual’s opportunities to secure employment, insurance, credit, and his right to due process, and other legal protections are endangered by the misuse of certain of these personal information systems; and

4. In order to preserve the rights guaranteed a citizen in a free society, legislation is necessary to establish procedures to govern information systems containing records on individuals.

Democrats in the General Assembly consider those principles trumped by their desires for control of every aspect of citizens lives from birth until death. Thus they are leading an effort to expand government collection, dissemination and integration of citizens’ personal information.  Continue reading →

32 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Freedom, General Assembly, Governance, Individual rights, Marxism, Open Government, Regulation, Transparency

Most Virginia Public Universities Score Low in Board Accountability

Posted on January 13, 2021 by | 10 comments

by James A. Bacon

Five Virginia universities score an “F” in a rating of governing board accountability and transparency released today by the Partners for College Affordability and Public Trust. They include Virginia Tech, James Madison University, Virginia Military Institute, Virginia State University and Longwood University.

George Mason University set the pace for board accountability with a B+. The University of Virginia scored a B.

The report was released in conjunction with the filing of a bill, HB 2120, which would provide greater public access to university board records, to meetings and even to board members. The bill would ensure that students, parents and the public could view board meetings remotely, email board members, and provide public comments before major board decisions are made, not just when tuition & fees are discussed.

“Service on a Board of Visitors for a Virginia public university is a highly coveted political appointment, but it is also a position of serious responsibility,” said Del. Mark Keam, D-Vienna, who sponsored the bill. Continue reading →

10 Comments

Posted in Education (higher ed), Governance, Transparency

Tagged

What Must Jim Ryan Do to Earn a $100,000 Bonus?

Posted on November 24, 2020 by | 49 comments

James Ryan — what has the Board of Trustees incentivized him to accomplish? We don’t know, and the University of Virginia won’t say.

by James A. Bacon

When the University of Virginia hired Jim Ryan as president in 2018, the terms of his employment were spelled out in a contract. Anyone can obtain a copy of the document under the Freedom of Information Act, as Bacon’s Rebellion has done.  You can view it here.

Among other things, the six-year contract calls for paying Ryan a base salary of $750,000, provide him a $20,000-a-year car allowance, cover membership fees for two clubs, give him free housing (including the cost of housekeeping and utilities), grant him 22 vacation days a year, allow him to accrue Sabbatical leave at the rate of two months per year, and award him a performance bonus of up to $100,000 a year.

While the details of a university president’s compensation are interesting, the most important clause from a governance perspective covers the performance bonus. The contract says this about the bonus:

An evaluation of the President’s performance shall be conducted annually by the Rector after consulting with the Board of Visitors. The evaluation shall be based on the achievement of mutually agreed upon performance objectives determined by the Board of Visitors and Mr. Ryan.

Continue reading →

49 Comments

Posted in Education (higher ed), Transparency

Tagged ,

Joe Biden, the SALT Cap and Virginia’s Hidden Taxes

Posted on October 20, 2020 by | 98 comments

by DJ Rippert

SALT of the Earth. The Trump Administration pushed through a change to the US tax code which capped the deduction for State And Local Taxes (SALT) at $10,000 per year. Previously there had been no cap. The imposition of the cap effectively increased the federal taxes paid by high-income earners, especially in high tax states / localities. Given that many high-income, high-tax areas in the U.S .are solidly Democratic, this loophole reduction rankled Democrats in the Congress. Those Democrats have made several unsuccessful attempts to repeal the cap.

Democrats are likely to win the presidency in the upcoming election and may take control of the U.S. Senate as well. If that happens, it is likely that they will make good on their prior efforts to remove the SALT cap. In Virginia, Democrats control the House of Delegates, the Senate and the Governor’s mansion. They have used that control to raise state taxes including the passage of a number of hidden taxes that have been implemented through regulation. If Joe Biden is elected, will the hidden taxes imposed by Virginia’s Democrats put the state’s residents at a disadvantage since they won’t be deductible when the SALT cap is lifted? Continue reading →

98 Comments

Posted in Open Government, Taxes, Transparency

Tagged , ,

Lost Absentees, Found Roll Call, Missing Statues

Posted on October 13, 2020 by | 35 comments

By Steve Haner

Faulty Absentee Ballot Tracker Still Losing Track

Complaints continue about an absentee ballot tracking system on the Virginia Department of Elections website. Someone with a problem similar to what I encountered in September reached out to Richmond’s WTVR-TV 6 News, which reported that the problem lies with the United States Postal Service. The tracking system is provided by an outside vendor.

Jessenia Eliza, the Director of Government Initiatives at Democracy Works (the outside vendor), told CBS 6 the issue the Duszaks were facing was as a result of their ballot barcodes not being scanned by USPS.

“Ballot Scout relies entirely on USPS data in the state of Virginia. How it works is that as the intelligent mail barcode on ballots are scanned, that information is sent to our tool, and it updates the associated voter record,” explained Eliza. “We’re seeing this here and there with ballots that aren’t moving beyond that ‘in-transit’ status. That typically means just that the USPS didn’t scan it further, not necessarily that the ballot isn’t moving.”

The reporter then spoke with somebody at the state, who said: Continue reading →

35 Comments

Posted in Elections, Electoral process, ethics, General Assembly, Transparency

Tagged

Woke War on America’s No. 1 High School

Posted on August 14, 2020 by | 46 comments

by Asra Q. Nomani

Last month, Suparna Dutta spent countless hours researching how her son could safely return to school this fall as a rising sophomore at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a sprawling campus of classrooms, laboratories and open spaces with names like “Gandhi Commons” and “Einstein Commons,” outside the nation’s capital here off Braddock Road. Little did she know that a secretive “task force” assembled by orders of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam was quietly meeting to discuss legislating radical changes to the school that would threaten the very future of the school.

Unbeknownst to Dutta — and me, also a TJ mother — Virginia Secretary of Education Atif Qarni, a former teacher, met remotely on Friday, July 24, with a carefully curated list of Democratic lawmakers, state education officials and others in a “Diversity/Equity/Inclusion Group” to make recommendations to the Virginia State Legislature on how to increase the number of Black, Hispanic and low-income students at the state’s 19 Governor’s Schools, specialized public school programs with admissions requirements. The group met again on Friday, July 31, and last week on Friday, August 7, and is expected to issue its recommendations in the coming days.

In its final meeting last week, the group weighed several options that would gut TJ’s merit-based, race-blind admissions process and replace it with standards that they even admitted in their private meetings would essentially be race-based. They are expected this week to issue several recommendations to the Virginia General Assembly before it convenes in special session next week, including: quotas from every middle school in the county (to boost acceptance from certain middle schools with underrepresented minorities); a second-step lottery in the admissions process; and an admissions bump for students with “socioeconomic disadvantage” (also a backdoor way to increase underrepresented minorities). Continue reading →

46 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), Open Government, Race and race relations, Transparency

Tagged

Virginia’s Department of Health and Misinformation

Posted on June 15, 2020 by | 17 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

With each passing day the Virginia Department of Health looks more like a purveyor of panic than an agency protecting the health of Virginians with factual, up-to-date information.

As the governor stubbornly clings to his overly-restrictive lockdowns and mask mandate, the department has proven useful to him as it supplies the public with half-baked information that often seems designed to frighten and obscure rather than inform.

Examples?

First, the inexplicable secrecy surrounding what can only be described as Virginia’s nursing home slaughter. Since the beginning of March, 879 nursing home residents have died of COVID-19. (Check back later today, that number will rise, as it has every single day so far.) In fact, almost 57 percent of all Virginia deaths are nursing home residents.

Yet just try to find out WHICH nursing homes are experiencing outbreaks and the total number of deaths inside each facility. This information is a closely guarded secret that only a few tenacious reporters have managed to uncover. Continue reading →

17 Comments

Posted in Transparency

Tagged ,

Loophole Allows Nursing Homes to Cover Up COVID-19 History

Posted on June 10, 2020 by | 32 comments

by Carol J. Bova

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) published an interim final rule with comment period (IFC) on May 8 that provided more flexibility for health care providers “to respond effectively to the serious health threats posed by the spread of COVID-19.” The rule amended Medicare policies on an interim basis to allow any healthcare professional authorized under state law to order COVID-19 serological and antibody testing to do so and pay new collection fees during the public health emergency.

The IFC added a number of other adjustments and changes. Perhaps the most watched is the one that established “explicit reporting requirements for long-term care (LTC) facilities for information related to COVID-19 cases and deaths among facility residents and staff,” including deaths of hospitalized residents.

CMS sent a Memorandum Summary to State Survey Agency Directors about the IFC and described the requirements for nursing homes to report COVID-19 facility data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), residents, their representatives, and families of residents in facilities. CMS said it would post the data for viewing by facilities, stakeholders, or the general public at https://data.cms.gov.

Facilities which fail to submit complete and accurate information will receive a deficiency citation and be subject to a fine. Unfortunately, the fines are unlikely to ensure compliance. Those who fail to report after a two-week grace period will receive a one-day civil money penalty (CMP) of $1,000, which will increase by $500 for each subsequent week. Continue reading →

32 Comments

Posted in Transparency

Tagged ,

The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear (of COVID-19) Itself

Posted on June 10, 2020 by | 13 comments

by James A. Bacon

The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) and Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (VHHA) publish a wide variety of data about COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths. It is easy to get overwhelmed by all the numbers, yet the data is woefully incomplete. Perhaps the greatest deficiency is that we have no ability to track what is happening with medical conditions that are not COVID-related.

That’s a huge issue because as Tomislav Mihaljevic and Gianrico Garrugia, CEOs of the Cleveland Clinic and the Mayo Clinice, point out in a New York Times  column, as many people may die from the fear of COVID-19 as from the virus itself. Writes respectively:

More than 100,000 Americans have died from Covid-19. Beyond those deaths are other casualties of the pandemic — Americans seriously ill with other ailments who avoided care because they feared contracting the coronavirus at hospitals and clinics.

The toll from their deaths may be close to the toll from Covid-19. The trends are clear and concerning. Government orders to shelter in place and health care leaders’ decisions to defer nonessential care successfully prevented the spread of the virus. But these policies — complicated by the loss of employer-provided health insurance as people lost their jobs — have had the unintended effect of delaying care for some of our sickest patients.

Continue reading →

13 Comments

Posted in Media, Transparency

Tagged ,

Our Gutsy Governor

Posted on June 5, 2020 by | 33 comments

By Peter Galuszka

On June 24, 2015, Nikki Haley, a Republican who was South Carolina’s first non-white governor, called for the removal of a Confederate flag that had been flying over the state’s capitol grounds for years.

“This flag, while an integral part of our past, does not represent the future of our great state,” she said. Her action came a few days after an avowed white supremacist walked into an African-American church and opened fire, killing church members attending a service.

I was watching the news on TV when she made her gutsy move. I was deeply impressed.

And now, Ralph Northam, a Democrat who is governor of Virginia, has taken a similarly gutsy move. He has ordered that the state-owned statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee be removed from its stand on Monument Avenue in Richmond. It has been there for about 130 years, erected by white supremacists with deep sentiment for their romantic myths of Southern history.

“I believe in a Virginia that learns lessons from our past and we all know that our country needs that example right now,” Northam said. Continue reading →

33 Comments

Posted in Bacon and pigs, Blogs and blog administration, Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, Defense, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Efficiency in government, Elections, General Assembly, Governance, Government Oversight, Government workers and pensions, Gun rights, Individual rights, Media, Politics, Race and race relations, Transparency

Beware Fake Tweets

Posted on June 2, 2020 by | 9 comments

The Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg, Russia

By Peter Galuszka

Around midnight Monday, reporters in downtown Washington D.C., stood by ready to cover the next round of protests about the slaying of African Americans by police.

They started getting tweets marked #dcblackout suggesting that internet service was being interrupted because of a secret program presumably run by the government that would cut them off.

The curious thing, NBC News reported, is that the reporters’ cell phones worked just fine. Later Twitter was contacted and began to investigate. It was curious that the questionable tweet seemed to be coming from the left-wing ANTIFA group that is said to have helped organize protests around the country.

A tweet labeled as been sourced with ANTIFA proclaimed “Tonight’s the night, comrades. Tonight we say F&*^The city and we move into the residential areas, the white hoods and we take what’s ours.”

Twitter quickly uncovered the problem. The tweets were fakes put out by a far-right white nationalist group called Identity Evropa. Twitter took down the sites because they violated the company’s policy against using social media to incite violence, NBC reported. Continue reading →

9 Comments

Posted in Blogs and blog administration, Business and Economy, Correction, Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, Defense, Elections, Electoral process, Federal, Government Oversight, Individual rights, Infrastructure, Media, Money in politics, Public safety & health, Race and race relations, Telecommunications, Transparency