Public Comments for: HB160 - FOIA; officers, employees, or members of a public body, alleged willful and knowing violations.
Last Name: Nicholls
Locality: Chesapeake
HB160 Specify criminal actions and jail time (mandatory) as that will force compliance. HB463 Quorum means the govt can hide more things and be less transparent.
Last Name: Wright
Organization: Uproar, first second chance
Locality: Stephens City
Freedom of information act . Requesting information is easy receiving information is not everything is a record of incarnation which makes it nearly impossible to get the information I need i don't think they are able to constantly use this if we have freedom of information what information can we get everything that is listed says we can get it but when asking for it they say it's a record of incarnation can we fix this
End of Comments
FOIA laws are an important part of data center fights, as many deals are made out of view of the public and shrouded in non-disclosure agreements. Currently in the Roanoke Valley there is a lawsuit pending brought by a local news organization, the Roanoke Rambler, against the Western Virginia Water Authority for redacting Google's water usage rate numbers from contracts obtained by FOIA. We currently support HB160 with the expectation that a judge will correctly evaluate a government official's responsibility in fulfilling FOIA requests.