FOIA Friday: AG’s university protest guidance, former Petersburg superintendent’s pricey trips • Virginia Mercury

One of the less noticed features of the Virginia Way is the long-running tendency of the commonwealth’s leaders to conduct their decision-making behind closed doors. While the Virginia Freedom of Information Act presumes all government business is by default public and requires officials to justify why exceptions should be made, too many Virginia leaders in practice take the opposite stance, acting as if records are by default private and the public must prove they should be handled otherwise.

In this feature, we aim to highlight the frequency with which officials around Virginia are resisting public access to records on issues large and small — and note instances when the release of information under FOIA gave the public insight into how government bodies are operating. 

AG’s email informed UMW leaders’ reaction to student protests

After 12 people, including 9 students, were arrested at a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg last month, new details are emerging about university leaders’ response to the event, which was shaped by guidance from the office of Attorney General Jason Miyares.

An April 26 email from Deputy Attorney General for Health, Education, and Social Services Rob Bell to Virginia Secretary of Education Aimee Rogstad Guidera, which the Mercury obtained from the university on Thursday through a FOIA request, defines the attorney general’s official stance on campus protests, the same day protesters created an encampment on UMW’s grounds.

“It is the legal position of the Office of the Attorney General that setting up a tent or establishing an encampment on university or college property is disruptive of the school’s activities and may violate other administrative policies,” the missive read. Colleges and universities had the authority to “refuse to allow such activity” and to “take down any tents that have been set up.” The AG’s office would “vigorously defend” the institutions if they met with challenges to these powers, the email concluded.

UMW President Troy Paino referenced the legal guidance when, on April 30, he met with a group of students seeking answers about the university’s decision to clear the encampment and arrest the protesters the preceding weekend, according to the Fredericksburg Free Press.

A student asked Paino “whether the Youngkin administration ordered the arrests of the 12 protesters who refused to leave an encampment,” which Paino denied, saying it was the he and the university’s board of visitors made that call themselves without “outside influence.”

“However, at one point during the meeting, Paino showed the students a document outlining the administration’s stance against the student encampments unfolding across the country,” the Free Press reported. 

Another student attendee at the meeting with Paino said the school’s president revealed the students arrested in the protest wouldn’t be expelled or face academic suspension, and their only consequence would probably be a warning for not following the school’s order to leave the encampment.

“He came across as sincere and that he knows that the university could’ve responded better,” the student said. 

Former Petersburg schools superintendent’s spending scrutinized

Petersburg’s former schools superintendent Dr. Tamara Sterling, who resigned suddenly in March without explanation, racked up $22,000 traveling to multiple conferences across the country over a 15-month period, public records of her travel expenses show. 

Though it’s common for school division leaders to attend professional conferences to build skills and gain insights from their peers in other states, WTVR investigative reporter Melissa Hipolit, who obtained the expense reports through a public records request, found that Sterling spent “more than double what the Henrico County superintendent spent, 14 times what the Hopewell superintendent spent, and 43 times what the Chesterfield superintendent spent on travel” over the same time period, February 2023 to February 2024. 

Sterling booked more than one hotel room for herself when attending three of the five conferences Hipolit reviewed. The conference trips to California, Nevada, Florida, Texas and Louisiana included several instances of extra hotel stays by Sterling, who in one case stayed seven days for a conference that lasted just two days.

Parents of students in Petersburg’s economically challenged schools were critical of Sterling’s spending from the division’s coffers, as was the area’s General Assembly representative, Sen. Lashrecse Aird, D-Petersburg.

“There just really is no rationale that can be used to explain the excess that’s appearing in the records that you found,” Aird told WTVR’s Hipolit in an on-camera interview.

Hipolit reported that Aird is collaborating with the Virginia Department of Education “to ensure greater enforcement and oversight of Petersburg schools so something like this does not happen again.”

Chesterfield police won’t release body cam footage from shooting that left mentally ill man dead

The Chesterfield County Police Department has refused to release body camera footage from a July 2023 incident wherein officers shot and killed a mentally ill man who was holding a hatchet, despite multiple requests for the footage from the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Charles Byers had been placed under a 72-hour detention for mental health treatment at Chippenham Hospital’s Tucker Pavilion two days before officers encountered him, as they responded to reports that Byers was attempting to break into homes in a neighborhood near Wycliff Court. Exactly how the situation escalated to deadly gunfire remains in dispute; officers said Byers wouldn’t drop the hatchet when they told him to, and that they tased him without effect before Byers began advancing on them. At that point, officers said, they shot him.

Byers’ family, represented by attorney Paul Curley, contradicted that account, saying body camera footage showed Byers holding the hatchet “down by his knee” during the incident, backing away from officers after they tased him, and being shot in the back while fleeing from police.

“I was expecting to see some justifiable reason for shooting him,” Curley said. “They basically just gunned him down.”

The Times-Dispatch requested to review the body camera footage on April 3, after officials announced the officers involved in the fatal shooting would not be criminally charged. That request was denied, as was the paper’s subsequent FOIA request, which police withheld “pursuant to the closed investigations exemption under Virginia’s FOIA,” the paper reported. Police spokesperson Liz Caroon on April 8 invited the paper’s reporters to come to police headquarters to view the footage, but scheduling conflicts prevented them from attending. When the paper asked if another viewing could be arranged, Caroon declined.  

Curley said Chesterfield police requested and received a protective order preventing the body camera footage from being released or shared. 

“If there is nothing to hide, then they shouldn’t have any problem with the video coming out,” Curley said. “But they have gone to extraordinary lengths to hide it … They’re definitely covering up some stuff on purpose.” 

Have you experienced local or state officials denying or delaying your FOIA request? Tell us about it: [email protected]