City to Release Records Related to Ward 3 Appointment
Council is "exercising its discretion" by releasing the records to petitioner Guy Gormley.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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Following a hearing in Fredericksburg Circuit Court yesterday, City Council will release documents requested by a resident under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.
According to the court order written and signed by Judge Gordon Willis on February 27, Council will release “(1) two pages of interview questions and (2) nine pages of handwritten notes pertaining to the FOIA request.”
Council continues to maintain that the documents are “lawfully exempt from mandatory disclosure under FOIA” but that the body is “exercising its discretion” to release them to Gormley, according to the order.
The Advance received a copy of the order on Friday morning from Andrew Bodoh, the attorney representing resident Guy Gormley in his petition seeking the release of documents related to the appointment of Susanna Finn to fill the vacant Ward 3 City Council seat.
Gormley also sought as part of his petition to have the court rule that Council was in violation of FOIA when it filled the vacant seat in a closed session earlier this month, but Willis ruled last week that the Council was following the City’s charter and that the closed session was appropriate.
Blaire O’Brien, outside attorney representing City Council, requested and was granted a continuation of the second question in the case to this week.
According to the judge’s order, Gormley on Thursday presented “testimony and evidence, and rested his case.” O’Brien made a motion to strike the evidence, which the court denied.
In an interview Friday morning with the Advance, Bodoh said Thursday’s hearing was “quite interesting in terms of what we found out.”
He said Tonya Lacey, Clerk of Council, testified that there were additional records that were responsive to Gormley’s request—such as emailed copies of applications to fill the vacant seat, thank-you notes sent to the applicants, and emailed interview questions from some Council members—that she didn’t think about as being responsive until later.
“With that testimony, the judge ruled that he would allow us to amend our requested release so as to cover these documents that we were now discovering existed,” Bodoh said. “The judge took a fifteen-minute recess and suggested we talk to resolve these issues. We were able to come back to court and the attorney for Council reported that though they believe the records withheld were exempt, they were going to exercise their discretion to release the hand-written notes as well as the interview questions.”
On Friday afternoon, Kerry Devine, Fredericksburg mayor, said there was “no intent to circumvent or not be responsive” to Gormley’s FOIA request.
“In the best interpretation of the request, the City made every effort to satisfy” it, she said.
Devine said process of filling the vacant seat was “a learning process” and that “there may be changes” to the process if another seat were to become vacant.
She said Council has not discussed any possible changes to the process, but that one might be asking candidates to fill out a standardized form, instead of asking them to submit their personal resumes.
But “let’s hope [another vacancy] does not happen,” she said. “We hope everybody stays healthy to complete their terms.”
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