FOIA Friday: Petersburg superintendent’s exit and school board’s conflict of interest concerns

File cabinets. (Getty)

One of the less noticed features of the Virginia Way is the long-running tendency of the commonwealth’s leaders to conduct their decision-making behind closed doors. While the Virginia Freedom of Information Act presumes all government business is by default public and requires officials to justify why exceptions should be made, too many Virginia leaders in practice take the opposite stance, acting as if records are by default private and the public must prove they should be handled otherwise.

In this feature, we aim to highlight the frequency with which officials around Virginia are resisting public access to records on issues large and small — and note instances when the release of information under FOIA gave the public insight into how government bodies are operating.

Petersburg schools withhold superintendent’s resignation letter

A little more than a week after Petersburg City Public Schools announced the impending departure of superintendent Dr. Tamara Sterling, the district declined to provide the Progress-Index with a copy of her resignation letter, which the paper requested in an effort to clear up the cloudy circumstances of Sterling’s leaving.

The school system announced Sterling’s resignation on March 20, following weeks of uncertainty about whether or not she was still with Petersburg schools. Though Sterling had not been present at the school board office since Feb. 23, and her LinkedIn profile said her time with the district ended in February, Petersburg School Board chairman Kenneth Pritchett said March 1 that Sterling was on leave, insisting that she had not quit or been fired.

The newspaper requested a copy of Sterling’s contract with Petersburg schools and her resignation letter the day after the board announced she would be leaving. Virginia FOIA law allows public bodies to release its employee’s or officer’s contracts, unless the contract details an employment dispute between the parties. While the district provided the contract, they declined to share Sterling’s resignation letter, citing a FOIA exemption that allows public bodies to withhold “personnel information concerning identifiable individuals.”

The Progress-Index then amended its FOIA request “to ask for a copy of the letter with the personnel information redacted. At the time of publication, that request has not been answered,” wrote the newspaper.

Sterling will remain on leave through the end of her last day with Petersburg schools, April 30.

House of Delegates leaders: Youngkin mischaracterized consultant review of arena project

Before the announcement of an impending deal between Monumental Sports and Washington D.C. ended all prospects of a pro sports arena coming to Virginia, state legislators in the House of Delegates said Gov. Glenn Youngkin, the arena plan’s biggest backer, overstated a consultant’s confidence in the project.

Virginia’s General Assembly session ended March 9 with a budget from the legislature that didn’t include the proposal to build an entertainment district in Alexandria anchored by an arena for the Washington Wizards basketball team and Washington Capitals hockey team. The plan would have relied on an estimated $2 billion in public funds to move forward. In several public speeches since then, the governor applauded the House for hiring a consultant to review the proposal, in contrast to the state Senate, which never held a hearing for the arena bill.

The Washington Post reported that Gov. Youngkin told a crowd in Chesapeake, “The House … did their work. They hired outside advisers. They confirmed all the assumptions. And guess what? The House passed the bill to go forward with this economic development project.”

But according to House Appropriations chairman Luke Torian, D-Prince William and House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, the scope of that work was inflated. Documents the Appropriations committee gave the Post in response to a FOIA request show that the law firm the committee had look over the plan wasn’t hired until Jan. 31 and only gave it a general review, not a deep-dive financial analysis as the governor’s statement seemed to suggest.

In contrast, the firm told House leaders that the arena plan “was that it was in line with other stadium deals, that it had the potential to be a really good deal but we needed to continue to vet it,” Scott told the newspaper. Torian called the governor’s claims about the law firm’s review for the House “a total mischaracterization.”

The Post reported March 27 that D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and the Capitals and Wizards’ owner Ted Leonsis had reached a deal to keep the teams in the city until 2050, pending city council approval.

The Mercury’s efforts to track FOIA and other transparency cases in Virginia are indebted to the work of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government , a nonprofit alliance dedicated to expanding access to government records, meetings and other state and local proceedings.

Rockingham school board’s new lawyer raises conflict of interest concerns

The Rockingham County School Board is wading through continued questions about its hiring of new legal counsel to represent the district, a decision that was made in a closed meeting and that some Harrisonburg school board members said could present a conflict of interest problem for both districts.

Rockingham’s school board hired Daniel Rose, an attorney at Litten & Sipe who also works with Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal advocacy firm that is representing a group of teachers suing Harrisonburg City Public Schools “ claiming violations against freedom of speech over the treatment of transgender students,” according to the Daily News-Record. The decision was made in a closed meeting, contrary to Virginia FOIA laws, which allow officers of public bodies to meet and deliberate in closed sessions but not to take official actions outside the public’s view.

Both the Harrisonburg and Rockingham school boards oversee the Massanutten Technical Center; that joint oversight is the source of the Center’s executive board chair and HCPS board member Kristen Loflin’s concerns about Rose’s new role with Rockingham.

“It seems illogical, it seems unethical,” Loflin told the paper.

Loflin scheduled an emergency meeting of the Center’s board for April 1 to discuss the potential conflict of interest.

In response, Rockingham School Board chairman Matt Cross said he and other board members might not attend the April 1 meeting, the purpose of which he characterized as a “political show.”

Have you experienced local or state officials denying or delaying your FOIA request? Tell us about it: info@virginiamercury.com

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