12/27/12: Norfolk’s growing lack of transparency

This op-ed appeared in The Virginian-Pilot on the date shown.

JUST DAYS before Christmas, we learned that the Norfolk city attorney has stopped releasing records of inspections of restaurants conducted by a task force.

Talk about a lump of coal in our stockings! Transparency, never a strong suit of Norfolk officials, is further eroded by this latest action.

The Norfolk Bar Task Force — a misnomer, actually, since there are no bars in Virginia, only restaurants that serve alcohol — has always been a bit of a mystery to most of us.

We heard the name only when the group conducted sweeps and shut down establishments. The composition of the unit can be gleaned only from media reports; there is no listing for it on the city’s website. In fact, the only mention is on the fire marshal’s page, and only the name appears.

Hiding behind an exemption in the Freedom of Information Act, this secret organization just became more so.

Yes, some of the inspection items wind up being a part of a criminal case, as we’ve seen in a few high-profile instances. But the vast majority will not. The decision places all of the records out of the public eye, only to be seen if a criminal case goes to court.

The mere fact that the records are no longer being released makes me wonder what is in them. Who are they protecting? It certainly isn’t us.

And with the lack of information about the task force in general, it seems that Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, has it pegged: “It looks like a secret police task force.”

This comes on the heels of another action lacking in transparency. The City Council held a work session Nov. 6 — yes, Election Day — in which it saw a presentation and discussed the city’s legislative agenda, the video of which can be found on the city’s website. A public hearing was scheduled for one week later. With little notice — and other important meetings going on that evening — only four people showed up to speak.

Much of what is in the legislative package is pretty bland stuff. But one of the four legislative requests is that the city charter be changed to put the mayor’s race on the same cycle as that of the two superwards, rather than with the five smaller wards as it is now. Virginia’s adherence to the Dillon Rule means that changes to city charters require the approval of the General Assembly.

Any change to the charter just cries out for public input. And, yes, council members paid lip service to this by holding the public hearing. But that’s all they did.

On Sept. 26, we first learned of the mayor’s proposal to change the election schedule; it had come up at a council retreat the day before. Between then and Nov. 13, the date of the public hearing, we heard almost nothing.

Little did we know that the council approved a draft of the legislative agenda, which included the shift, at some point shortly after it was first raised. (The draft report carries the date of Oct. 5, which seems unlikely since the council didn’t meet that day.)

Whether or not you support the change in the mayor’s election — I do not, because the turnout numbers have more to do with the candidates than the election — we should have been provided a reasonable opportunity to participate in a discussion about it.

An Election Day announcement of a hearing simply doesn’t cut it. And a “public hearing” where each speaker is given three minutes to make his or her case, followed by no feedback and a vote, isn’t civic engagement at all.

With New Year’s just around the corner, perhaps Norfolk should adopt a resolution to engage in more transparency.