|
|
||
Date published: 11/12/2007
I write in response to the Nov. 8 article titled "Spotsy ordered to release 4 e-mails." While there are certainly heartening parts Judge Beck stated county officials did While this could be thought of as an interesting policy argument, it is not an exemption to disclosure under FOIA. Virginia's FOIA states clearly that all public records are to be deemed open unless a public body specifically exercises one of the discretionary exemptions listed in the FOIA statute. What one could debate in this case is whether or not the blacked-out e-mails were records in the transaction of public business, as is required by the statute to be This is simply not the law. What if the former Loudoun County Board of Supervisors had been able to use this argument to withhold e-mails that showed collusion between some board members and developers? It seems that Judge Beck has made up a very broad discretionary exemption to FOIA that the General Assembly, in its wisdom, never put into the exemptions section of the statute. Jennifer L. Perkins Fauquier The writer is executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government.
Once elected, government officials tend to forget who is the boss. They do come around every four years and want to be our best friend, telling us all the good things they are going to do for us. After the election results are in and they take office, they treat us like mushrooms. You know, keep us in the dark and throw shi* on us.
I don't know if this judge is elected or appointed, I suppose the latter, but the fact he is responsible to we the people. This judge forgot that.
|
|
|||||||||||
