Purcellville Town Council member Kelli Grim. (Renss Greene/Loudoun Now)
So the Purcellville Town Council is wild.
I very, very seldom cover the Purcellville Town Council. It's not my beat, I don't have the connections, I hear a few things—but I pretty much know what I read in the paper and that the meeting I was at last week was nuts. So while I think I have a general sense of what's going on between the majority on council and the apparently tremendously popular town manager they just decided to sack, I'm not going to start calling fouls on that.
But here's a foul I will call. Council member Kelli Grim was complaining about some other council members who allegedly talked about what happened during the hours of closed-session performance review of town manager Rob Lohr Jr. She said she would not stoop to those levels.
Quoth council member Grim:
“Do what you need to do, but I’m not going to violate the FOIA laws.”
Except that doesn't make any sense.
I did call this out in my second article on Mr. Lohr at Loudoun Now, if you're thinking that looks familiar, but I thought it was important enough to get into detail here and make a few more points about it.
By "FOIA," Grim is referring to Virginia Code § 2.2-3700 through § 2.2-3714, the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (or FOIA or "sunshine laws" if you're hip.) FOIA requires that meetings of public bodies ("any legislative body, authority, board, bureau, commission, district or agency of the Commonwealth or of any political subdivision of the Commonwealth") be open to the public, but there are 48 (48!) exemptions to that requirement. Many of those exemptions refer to specific public bodies, but the point is, there are plenty of holes in Virginia FOIA.
The very first one of those holes exempts Lohr's performance review from sunshine laws. From § 2.2-3711:
"A. Public bodies may hold closed meetings only for the following purposes:
1. Discussion, consideration, or interviews of prospective candidates for employment; assignment, appointment, promotion, performance, demotion, salaries, disciplining, or resignation of specific public officers, appointees, or employees of any public body[...]"
So Grim seems to be saying that talking about what happened in that closed session would "violate FOIA." But rewind, in case you missed it: "Public bodies may hold closed meetings."
Outgoing Purcellville Town Manager Robert W. Lohr Jr. (Renss Greene/Loudoun Now)
There is nothing in the Freedom of Information Act that requires a town council to lock the public they purportedly represent out of a meeting. And there is in fact no prohibition in any law against anyone who was in that meeting talking about what happened in the meeting.
The language around government documents is similar. The code sections which spell out those exemptions begin: "The following information contained in a public record is excluded from the mandatory disclosure provisions of this chapter but may be disclosed by the custodian in his discretion, except where such disclosure is prohibited by law." (Emphasis mine.)
Invoking the Freedom of Information Act to argue one must withhold information is bizarre and odious to the spirit of open government.
So just keep that in mind when a government body declines to give you information you have requested or locks you out of a meeting, citing an exemption in FOIA. Yes, they do it routinely, and yes, FOIA grants them the right to do it, but it does not require it. There is very little information that public officials are not actually allowed to give you, particularly when you're talking about local government. They are choosing not to give it to you.
Anyway, as my college advisor and mentor, Emory & Henry College professor emeritus Dr. Teresa Keller, is known for saying: "Raise hell, raise hell!"