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VA Court To Review "Official" Email Rules

Posted by Unknown on from the instant-messaging-considered-seditious dept.

imac.usr writes "The Virginia Supreme Court will hear arguments today on a case brought by a Fairfax County resident alleging that the county's school board members violated the state's Freedom of Information Act. The suit alleges that board members colluded to close an elementary school in the county through rapid exchange of emails with each other. The state's FOIA rules stipulate that such exchanges can not constitute 'virtually simultaneous interaction' and that any assemblage of three or more members constitutes a formal meeting which must be announced. The article notes similar suits are popping up across the country, highlighting one of the difficulties governments face in balancing communication with transparency."

10 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. difficulties? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "any assemblage of three or more members constitutes a formal meeting which must be announced."

    Sounds like simply following the rules would work best.

    1. Re:difficulties? by SJHillman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You can legislate anything you damn well please. You can even enforce a good majority of it. Whether or not it will work as intended is another matter.

  2. Meeting in slow motion? by davidwr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    OK fine, I'll check my email from 8-8:30AM and 12-12:30PM, my fellow board member will check his mail from 9-9:30AM and 1-1:30PM, and so on so we have at least two "round robins" per day.

    By the end of the week we'll accomplish what would've taken half an hour, but it will be in secret and nobody will be the wiser.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
    1. Re:Meeting in slow motion? by jmauro · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The issue is that meetings should be public so the public can know what's being discussed, can be there to watch, and be able comment on the proceedings since the board members actually you know work for the public. Doing the meeting via email does keep a paper trail, but it doesn't allow the public to weigh in on the decision. That is the issue.

    2. Re:Meeting in slow motion? by jmauro · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What you'll find though is the well connected interest groups would then rule the roost and pretty much run roughshod over everyone else, all so the connected groups can make the most profit at the expense of everyone else. And by the next election it's usually too late to overturn the decisions (and if it's really controversial they'll just run someone else who'll keep the machinery flowing to the right connected parties.)

      We tried the closed meetings, get things done way before and it was so bad laws like the Open Meetings and Sunshine laws since keeping things secret and getting things done led to things like general corruption and machines like Tammany Hall. Having everyone gum up the works (i.e. having all sides voices heard) is a feature of the system, not a bug.

  3. The fix was in. by mbone · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As it happens, my son went to Clifton Elementary, and the fix was definitely in on its closures. The pretty solid feeling against closure on the part of the Clifton Community was ignored, and a lot of people in the town feel railroaded. (The presumption is that some real estate developer wants the prime real estate the school sits on, and spread enough money around to make it happen.)

    1. Re:The fix was in. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I too live in the Clifton area. I recall that one of the biggest issues was the cost per child to renovate the building. Clifton housed about 300 students. The neighboring schools housed 600-900 each, with capacity to absorb the Clifton students. The District's budget has been pinched, like most local governments. It seemed to make more sense to mothball the school and redistribute the students. The building has been vacant nearly a year now, and the only offer to "purchase" has been from some former Clifton parents who what to turn it into a magnet school, at taxpayer expense. If the fix is in, who is benefiting? A lot of board members lost their seats, or chose not to run because of this issue, including the Springfield rep. I don't see her driving a new Ferrari.

  4. Which "NDAA"? by daveschroeder · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You mean the National Defense Authorization Act, which is the entire federal defense budget, and of which there is one every single fiscal year, is always passed around the same time, and which always has controversial provisions because they're easy to stick into a defense spending bill?

    Oh, you mean the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2012, which had a total of about two controversial sentences out of hundreds of pages, clearly codifying what has been standard practice for persons identified as enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay for several years?

    The one that people thought was some kind of a "secret plot" to indefinitely imprison random American citizens in military custody without trial, even though the wording says persons must be a "part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners"?

    That NDAA? Oh. Yeah. Completely and totally unrelated. But nice try bringing something like military detention provisions into a story about a local school board's email communications!

    1. Re:Which "NDAA"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      And since there is no due process of any kind, no one has to show that an undesirable is "part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners." So that claim that the government can indefinitely imprison random American citizens in military custody without trial remains valid.

  5. In Massachusetts... by crow · · Score: 4, Informative

    The rules are different in each state. In Massachusetts, I serve on a town board (the Planning Board, but the rules are the same for all boards). The relevant law is called the Open Meeging Law. We're simply not allowed to express any opinion on a matter before the board with a quorum of the board outside of a public meeting. We can do things like send out the agenda and documents to be discussed, but we can't suggest a course of action. Further, all emails to and from board members concerning the board are public record, and are subject to FOIA requests.

    It's very frustrating not being able to do any business by email. It would be nice if email were allowed, provided that we used a list that was immediately available online on the town web site. On the other hand, I do see how this could make it harder for residents to have their input heard, and it could leave some board members who are not online much at a disadvantage.