Virginia Attorney Gen. Ken Cuccinelli II is dropping his assertion that the Office of the Attorney General is exempt from state public records laws, indicating in a statement Monday that he had asked staff attorneys to stop including the claim in their responses to requests for records from his office. The office has never stopped responding to requests for documents, which a spokesman said Friday number in the hundreds each year. But staff lawyers had begun to insert a footnote into responses indicating that a 2011 court ruling that exempted the State Corporation Commission from Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act also applied to Attorney General’s Office. The footnote indicated that a “good faith” argument could be made that the office responded to FOIA requests merely as a “courtesy.” Open government advocate Waldo Jaquithand the Roanoke Times had both said they received replies to requests for records recently that included the footnote. Cuccinelli, who has promised an open and transparent government as he campaigns for governor, had come under fire from Democrats as it became public that his office was asserting a new claim that it was exempted from the law.
Source: The Washington Post
Fifteen years after federal child care funding was made available to low-income parents entering the workforce, regulations are being proposed to improve the safety and quality of that care. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released this week an in-depth report that outlines a series of proposed regulations, including health and safety training, more comprehensive background checks and monitoring of child care providers. The changes are aimed at those who receive the Child Care and Development Fund money but could have a spinoff effect in the child care industry, according to a Health and Human Services news release. State officials could not say yet what impact the proposed regulations might have on Virginia. One would require background checks with fingerprinting. The state does not currently require fingerprinting. Melissa Perdue, a spokeswoman for the Department of Social Services, said in an emailed response that the “staff will be studying this document to understand its contents.”
Source: The Virginian-Pilot
This year’s landmark transportation-funding package will pour billions of dollars more into state coffers in the next several years, and local officials are wasting little time making plans for Hampton Roads’ share. Some of the money appears likely to go toward an array of familiar projects, including expansion of Military Highway in Norfolk and widening of Interstate 64 between Newport News and Williamsburg. But some appears destined to be set aside and leveraged - with revenue from new tolls - to address the region’s perpetual transportation challenge: expanding traffic capacity across the harbor. Dwight Farmer, executive director of the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, told municipal and transportation planners this week that they should work together to decide within the month whether they prefer expansion of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel or construction of the Patriots Crossing, which would connect Interstate 564 to Interstate 664 between Suffolk and Newport News.
Source: The Virginian-Pilot
Over nearly three decades, Ernestine Slade cared for 63 foster children from Portsmouth to Yorktown before retiring from that work in 2010. Now, Gov. Bob McDonnell is encouraging more Virginians to follow her lead as he launches theVirginia Adopts: Campaign for 1,000 to find permanent homes for 1,000 foster care children in the state system eligible for adoption. The Republican governor formally kicked-off that initiative Friday afternoon at an event in the front yard of Virginia’s Executive Mansion teeming with foster and adoptive families, government personnel and child advocates. Appealing to the crowd, McDonnell said the mission is about more than just asking “people to love their neighbor and get involved with foster children” because it’s the right thing to do and “will change a life forever.” There are also societal benefits, he noted. McDonnell cited statistics showing that children who age out of foster care without being adopted are less likely to finish high school and college, live in stable households, and are more likely to commit crimes and have children out of wedlock. He called those outcomes “unacceptable here in Virginia, the eighth most prosperous state in the nation.”
Source: The Virginian-Pilot
The owners of a vineyard who landed Virginia’s first deal to sell wine in China were so thankful for the help of the state officials who negotiated the agreement that they decided to show their gratitude. Barboursville Vineyards allowed Gov. Robert F. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, to host their 35th wedding anniversary party at the vineyard for free. The party for about 100 close friends and relatives took place just a few hours after the couple participated in the 2011 signing ceremony for the China deal at the vineyard. McDonnell (R) disclosed the gift on his mandatory annual disclosure form for 2011, indicating that the vineyard near Charlottesville had given him $3,000 worth of “lodging and entertainment.” The free party illustrates a reality in Virginia: While it’s illegal for politicians to accept a gift in direct exchange for official acts, gifts often arrive from those who have sought or will seek some benefit from state government. In addition, the wording on the disclosure forms is so vague that it’s difficult to discern any details about what the gift is for and about. In the case of the winery, there is no indication that the entertainment was an anniversary party or that Barboursville had received help from the state.
Source: The Washington Post
The latest installment in the Star Scientific soap opera engulfing Richmond has a July 8 hearing to decide if the mansion chef embezzlement case should be tossed out because Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s involvement tainted the case too much to pursue.
If not, the trial is set for Oct. 15. Three weeks before voters have to go to the polls where Cuccinelli is on the ballot, they will hear four days of details, likely including former chef Todd Schneider’s argument that he’s been targeted for blowing the whistle on Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams’ gift-giving ways. It sounds like a “Law & Order” case on TV, but it’s really an example of what can happen when state leaders prize secrecy and money over doing the right thing.
Whomever you believe, this case has spotlighted the gaps in Virginia’s rules to hold the powerful accountable. Disclosure is worth nothing if you can avoid penalties with a simple “I forgot.” Funneling cases through the attorney general’s office is fine until the AG is involved in the case. Unlimited gifts and donations are a perk of office — until it appears to be quid pro quo and reputations start stinking.
In keeping with the state’s byzantine public records policy, even the information that must be shared is behind walls. The disclosure forms are kept in Richmond and you must call ahead to see them. If not for the nonprofit Virginia Public Access Project (www.vpap.org), most Virginians would have no ready access to follow the flow of gifts. What else can we expect from a state that took a case all the way to the Supreme Court earlier this year rather than let out-of-state residents into its records?
Source: The Staunton News Leader
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s office is proving that there’s nothing free about Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act, certainly not when it comes to requests about communications with Star Scientific and its embattled but generous CEO, Jonnie Williams Sr. Roanoke Times reporter David Ress asked the attorney general’s office for records of communications that Cuccinelli or his staff has had with Williams about the $1.7 million in state taxes and penalties that Star Scientific is contesting in court. Ress noted on the newspaper’s Blue Ridge Caucus blog that he also wanted to find out if Cuccinelli and Gov. Bob McDonnell or members of their staffs had traded thoughts on the issue. Ress was informed that the attorney general’s office bills at a rate of $53.65 an hour to look through its files and emails, and that fulfilling his request would cost at least $14,400. That amount of money could almost pay for five family getaways at Williams’ Smith Mountain Lake vacation home, based on Cuccinelli’s gift disclosure reports. A senior assistant attorney general helpfully suggested that Ress narrow his request. The U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld Virginia’s decision to deny public records to out-of-state residents under the Freedom of Information Act. By charging exorbitant fees for those records, Cuccinelli’s office doesn’t treat Virginia residents with any more favor.
Source: The Roanoke Times
State revenues rose 2.2 percent in April compared with April 2012, according to figures the McDonnell administration released today. Year to date, total revenue collections rose 4.1 percent through April, ahead of the annual forecast of 3.6 percent growth. Over the next two months $3.6 billion is needed to be collected to meet the fiscal year estimate. Last year the state collected $3.5 billion in the May and June time frame. State officials say April is a significant month for collecting revenues. In addition to regular collections of withholding and sales taxes, final payments for tax year 2012 and the first estimated payment for tax year 2013 were due from corporations on April 15. Also, a large portion of estimated and final payments from individuals, which are due May 1, are typically received in April.
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch
Charles W. Steger, who oversaw Virginia Tech at a time of major growth but also its greatest tragedy, today announced his retirement. After 14 years he described as “a nanosecond,” Steger told students, faculty and staff in an email that he will step down after his replacement is found. The university said the board of visitors will assemble a search committee immediately. Steger, scheduled to deliver Tech’s commencement speech Friday, said he has been “doubly blessed” to spend virtually his entire career at the university. “As a three-time graduate of this institution, Virginia Tech has afforded me the tools for leadership and personal fulfillment,” he said in a statement. His announcement came weeks after the state Supreme Court reversed an earlier decision and said it will hear arguments that Steger should be put on trial for his actions during the 2007 campus massacre.
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch
IS THE Way2Go card the commonwealth’s version of the Edsel and New Coke? Last year, the General Assembly found a way to save the state about $200,000 on tax refunds. Instead of receiving checks, most of those eligible for refunds (the dead and those under 18 were given a pass) had the choice of either direct deposit to their bank accounts or the Way2Go card, a debit card. The Way2Go program is managed—strangely enough—by Xerox, the copier people. Those altruistic souls offered to take over the tax-refund program from the state, at no cost. The state saves $200,000. Xerox gets to tack on a variety of nickel-and-dime fees that can really add up. For instance, if recipients don’t use the cards for six months, a monthly $3 “inactivity fee” comes into play. (Anyone who has ever neglected to use every last dollar of a Christmas gift card can see how lucrative this can be for Xerox, with a couple of hundred thousand cards out there.)
Source: Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star
Gov. Robert F. McDonnell might wish that Boston Marathon bombingsuspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev hadn’t been buried in Virginia, but he said the cemetery owners had every right to accept his body. “That wouldn’t have been my choice, but it’s a cemetery, it’s a religious cemetery,” McDonnell said Monday. “My understanding is we don’t regulate those and it’s really a matter of private property. McDonnell made the comment Monday in response to questions from reporters after abill-signing ceremony for a $1.4-billion-a-year transportation-funding measure. On Friday, news broke that Tsarnaev had been quietly interred at Al-Barzakh Cemetery, an Islamic burial ground in Doswell, about three miles east of Kings Dominion. The cemetery offered to take his body after those in the Boston area refused. A Richmond woman who’d heard a news report about the body being turned away helped connect the cemetery with Massachusetts officials.
Source: The Washington Post
Zero-tolerance policies remove discretion from the decision-making that leads to discipline. Everybody gets the same punishment. The problem is that such policies remove judgment - and sometimes common sense - from the equation. The story, by now, is well known even on the Pacific Coast: Two 7-year-old Suffolk boys pointed pencils at each other and made shooting noises early this month at Driver Elementary School. They were suspended last Monday and Tuesday for violating the division’s no-tolerance weapons policy, which also forbids drawing a gun or pointing a finger in a threatening manner. A pencil isn’t a gun. Punishing a child, as Suffolk did, because he pretended it was makes a mockery of the very notion of school discipline, as the city has now discovered.
Source: The Virginian-Pilot
Virginia’s long-delayed efforts to transition people with mental illness and developmental disabilities out of state institutions are being hobbled by state regulations that limit the use of important housing grants to group homes and assisted-living facilities, advocates say. In a complaint filed with a federal civil-rights office, advocacy groups for the mentally ill are seeking to broaden the use of state money available for housing, shifting the focus from group home settings to include truly independent options such as apartments and individual housing units. “The commonwealth is essentially requiring people to go from one type of institution to another,” said Jonathan Martinis, legal director with the advocacy group Quality Trust, which is bringing the complaint in conjunction with the Virginia chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Filed with the civil-rights office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the complaint alleges the state policy violates the American with Disabilities Act and other federal laws obligating states to provide minimally restrictive environments to qualified people with mental illness and developmental disabilities.
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch
Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli have agreed on very little since the start of the Virginia gubernatorial campaign, but the one issue on which they found common ground — ending a handful of local business taxes — has anxious municipal officials across the state warning that it would be a financial disaster. McAuliffe and Cuccinelli each recently proposed reducing or eliminating the Business Professional Occupation Licensing, the Machinery and Tool, and the Merchants Capital taxes as part of their economic plans to create jobs and grow businesses in the state. Both are jockeying to be seen as the business-friendly candidate who cares most about putting Virginians back to work. But those three taxes were worth $899 million to cities, towns and counties in 2012 and neither candidate has detailed how he would replace that lost revenue.
Source: The Washington Examiner
Gov. Bob McDonnell is launching a campaign to promote the adoption of children in foster care in Virginia. The governor plans to kick off the campaign at an event next week at the Executive Mansion in Richmond. Officials say the initiative aims to match more than 1,000 children in foster care in Virginia with 1,000 adoptive families.
McDonnell recorded a video message to encourage Virginians to participate in the campaign. He also issued a proclamation recognizing May as “Foster Care Month” in Virginia.
Source: The Washington Post
