Thread by @socialistdogmom

“we are a community that likes to be informed,” says vice mayor heather hill in her opening remarks at tonight’s city-presented workshop on FOIA.
kicking things off with a packet of information & powerpoint from city attorney john blawQ2I

the workshop is geared toward board and commission members - blair is speaking to concerns members of these bodies may have about the extent to which their personal emails may be FOIA-able. the slide up right now is just a picture of rahm emanuel.

now a slide of jared kushner’s face. blair speculates that a judge will order those private whatsapp messages to be released under FOIA. he advises board members that any communication about their service, even private messages, can be FOIA’ed.

as members of the public, don’t forget this! if you email a public official, that email can be FOIA’ed. that result will show your name & email address. anything you send a public official can be a public record.

board members are advised to retain every email related to their service on a board for at least three years, even after their term has expired.
they can turn them over to the city to store for that three year period if they prefer.

the example he gives about how all votes have to be public is voting for board chairs - people may want to do this privately because they are friends with both candidates. (interestingly, the council’s selection of mayor was done openly for the first time last year)

the city attorney confirms it is legal to tweet out the proceedings of a public meeting 😂

who complained about me?

i laughed, tbh

the director of the virginia coalition for open government says openness and transparency are important because... people are more likely to cut you some slack when you do need to “circle the wagons” if they generally feel like you’ve played straight.

getting faint vibes of hostility toward the general public from this representative from a body whose name would cause me to hope that would not be how she feels!

i’m really uncomfortable with the way this speaker is framing her entire presentation. she’s talking about the importance of appeasing an angry electorate with the appearance of transparency, rather than the actual civic importance of a transparent, honest government.

“that’s the kind of thing that makes the public angry,” she says of an example that is a BLATANT AND EXTREME violation of the law about public meetings.
of course the public would be mad about this... but the emphasis on PR over good governance is concerning.

she did at least close by saying that the business of all these bodies is to serve the public & FOIA is another way to do that.
now moving on to Q&A. again, most attendees are members of city boards or commissions.

the law has really not caught up with technology. one audience member asks if simultaneous editing of a document would amount to a ‘meeting’ (group emails with simultaneous communication do). the presenter says she doesn’t know, but probably not.

but if you think about the spirit rather than the letter of the law, the tracked changes and comments on a shared document being edited by a board should probably be a public record.