Showing posts with label Employees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Employees. Show all posts

Sunday, September 6, 2015

Utilities Yard In Bad Shape?


We keep hearing about how awful the conditions are at the utilities yard are and we seem to keep seeing evidence of it everywhere.  The guy above is seen at Hardee's at breakfast time because there just isn't any decent place at work to eat or even sit for the most part at the utilities yard.  

  The county can give away your tax dollars to private businesses but can not take care of its own infrastructure?  Or it's employees?  That is just embarrassing.  

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Government Officials And Employees Use of Personal Emails Updated

To Whom It May Concern:
 
The Virginia Freedom of Information Act, the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council, (A state agency with the expertise to help resolve disputes over Freedom of Information issues) the Virginia Public Records Act (PRA) and the Code of Virginia do not allow, support or condone the use of private email accounts to conduct government business.  The following is the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council’s opinion on email communications.  This opinion is basically the Commonwealth’s adopted legal opinion on the use, access and retention of email communications as pertains to government use. 
 
 E-MAIL:
USE, ACCESS & RETENTION
The use of e-mail in the business place has become routine and is a preferred mode of communication. For state and local government officials and employees, the application of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) relating to access to records and the Virginia Public Records Act (the PRA) relating to the retention of records comes into play.
 
Government officials and employees frequently ask two key questions about the use of e-mail --"Can the public and media access my e-mail under FOIA?" and "Do I have to save my e-mail?"
 
This document will attempt to answer these questions and provide guidance about the use and management of e-mail by state and local government.
 
The nature of e-mail
E-mail generally refers to any communication that requires an electronic device for storage and/or transmission.1 E-mail is a medium for correspondence -- essentially, e-mail is the "envelope" for the communication. For purposes of FOIA & the PRA, e-mail provides a medium for communication, much like a telephone or the U.S. Mail provides a means of communication. The fact that a communication is sent via e-mail is not alone conclusive of whether that e-mail must be accessible to the public under FOIA or retained pursuant to the PRA; one must look at the text and substance of the communication to determine whether it is indeed a public record.
 
The Virginia Freedom of Information Act
FOIA addresses access to public records. Section 2.2-3701 of the Code of Virginia defines public records for purposes of FOIA to include "all writings and recordings that consist of letters, words or numbers, or their equivalent, set down by handwriting, typewriting, printing, photostatting, photography, magnetic impulse, optical or magneto-optical form, mechanical or electronic recording or other form of data compilation, however stored, regardless of physical form or characteristics, prepared or owned by, or in the possession of a public body or its officers, employees or agents in the transaction of public business."
 
Clearly an e-mail would fall under this broad definition of a public record, because it applies to all writings and recordings…set down by…mechanical or electronic recording…however stored, regardless of physical form or characteristics. As noted above, e-mail is just the medium, or the envelope, used to convey the communication. Just as a letter sent via U.S. Mail from one public official to another concerning public business would be a public record under FOIA, so would that same communication sent via e-mail.
 
FOIA requires that unless subject to a statutory exemption, all public records must be open to inspection and copying. Therefore, an e-mail relating to public business would be accessible just like any other public record, and may be withheld from public disclosure only if a particular exemption applies to the content of the e-mail.
 
The Virginia Public Records Act
While FOIA governs access to records held by state and local government, the PRA governs how long a government entity must retain certain records. The PRA defines "public record" for purposes of records retention, and like FOIA, the definition is fairly broad and would include e-mail as a public record. Section 42.1-77 defines a public record to include recorded information that documents a transaction or activity by or with any public officer, agency or employee of the state government or its political subdivisions. Regardless of physical form or characteristic, the recorded information is a public record if it is produced, collected, received or retained in pursuance of law or in connection with the transaction of public business.
 
The PRA sets forth different retention schedules for different types of records. Several factors shape how long a record needs to be held. Many records are only kept for so long as business requires them to be kept, although if a record has historical significance or is created by an agency head or director, it may need to be kept longer. For example, certain records are required to be maintained permanently, such as records from standing committees of the General Assembly, annual reports of state agencies, and correspondence of agency directors. Other records need only be kept so long as they are administratively necessary, such as reminders of events like blood drives or fund raisers, courtesy copies of correspondence, or messages received from a listserv. Along the continuum, other records may be required to be retained for 30 days to ten years, depending on their content. After the retention time has expired for a particular document, then that record may be destroyed pursuant to the guidelines set forth by the Library of Virginia.2

2 PRA is administered by the Library of Virginia. For more details on retention schedules for particular types of records or for a particular agency, or for information regarding the proper disposal of records, please contact the Library of Virginia. Records retention information and contact information is also available on the Library's website at http://www.lva.lib.va.us/whatwedo/records/index.htm.
 
In providing guidance for adhering to the PRA, the Library of Virginia notes that e-mail should be treated the same as paper correspondence. Again, e-mail is only the medium, or the envelope, by which the correspondence is sent; the retention schedule for a particular e-mail will depend on its content and should be preserved the same as its paper equivalent. Both incoming and outgoing e-mail should be retained, along with any attachments sent via e-mail.
 
Tips for using and managing e-mail
All e-mails related to public business are subject to the provisions of FOIA and the PRA, and should be managed in the same manner as all other public records.
 
There is a tendency with e-mail to hit the delete button as soon as you are finished with a particular message. However, consideration must be given to whether that particular e-mail must be retained for purposes of the PRA -- you can't automatically delete your e-mail, just as you can't automatically throw away paper correspondence and records.
 
FOIA governs access to records. The PRA dictates how long you are required to keep certain records. If a government entity keeps an e-mail (or any other record) for longer than its retention schedule requires, that e-mail will still be subject to FOIA if requested. Conversely, if a government entity properly disposes of a record pursuant to a retention schedule, and a subsequent FOIA request is made for that record, FOIA does not require the government entity to recreate the record.
 
E-mail is often used as a substitute for a telephone call, and is quite informal. However, e-mail creates a record of that communication that must be retained pursuant to the PRA and will be available upon request to the public under FOIA. Consider the consequence of choice to use e-mail instead of the telephone -- it may not be in your best interest to be as informal on e-mail as you are on the telephone.
 
The Library of Virginia discourages the practice of maintaining permanent records solely in electronic format, without a paper or microfilm backup.3 For records that do not need to be maintained permanently, these e-mails can be printed out and stored in a traditional, paper file (and the electronic copy can be deleted) or electronic folders can be created on the computer to organize e-mails based on functions, subjects or activities. The Library of Virginia suggests that these folders are assigned to your home directory on the computer, and not on the network. By way of example, at the FOIA Council we print a copy of all of the FOIA questions that we receive via e-mail, along with our corresponding response, and file the paper copy in a chronological file. After we have printed a copy to retain for our records, we delete the e-mail off of the computer.
 
Public officials and employees should not commingle personal and official e-mails. Private e-mails do not need to be retained; e-mails relating to the transaction of public business do. From an e-mail management perspective, it is probably not a good idea to mix personal and official business in the same e-mail. Official e-mails that need to be retained should be maintained with other public records that relate to the same content.
________________________________________________________________________
 
As is clearly evident; the Commonwealth of Virginia does have established guidance pertaining to the use of private email to conduct government business by elected officials and government employees. 
 
A look at email addresses for Gloucester County Supervisors on the Gloucester County website will reveal each Supervisor having there own county government email address.  A look at the Gloucester County Public Schools website will reveal six of the seven Gloucester County School Board members list private email addresses.  FOIA obtained Gloucester County Public Schools email conversations contain email conversations that either originated from, were sent to, forwarded to or carbon copied to private email addresses belonging to Gloucester County School Board members and school administration personnel.
 
The following are private email addresses of officials and employees within the Gloucester Public School System that have been identified thus far as using non-Gloucester County government email accounts to conduct government business or to send government business to.

Betty Jane Duncan…BJDuncan12@cox.net
Ben Kiser…Kiserben@gmail.com  AND
Ben Kiser… hkiser1@cox.net
Diane Gamache…dgamache2@cox.net
Charles Records…crecords@zandler-dev.com
Ann Burruss…Aburruss2@cox.net
Carla Hook…hookc@cox.net
Kevin Smith…kevinsmith914@gmail.com   AND  
Kevin Smith…rev.kev2@verizon.net
Kimberly Hensley… kimberlyehensley@gmail.com
Randy Burack…georgeburak@cox.net 
Enhanced by Zemanta

Monday, August 5, 2013

Gloucester, Virginia Abuses Continue










































Gloucester County officials continue to prove that they have no control over their employees and no regard for state laws or codes.  This is yet another Gloucester County, Virginia official vehicle being used for personal use at the drive up window once again at Hardee's in the Gloucester Courthouse area.  Vehicle number 273, white van with county emblem in the side.  School board.  Time pictures were taken is 7:20 AM.



Another shot from another person of van number 273 at 7:20 AM this morning, August 5th, 2013 at Hardee's.

















To top this off, Animal Control was seen leaving this area at 7:13 AM this morning.  No pictures could be taken in time according to our sources.  

  Again, these are the same people who are going to tell you tomorrow night, why they need 17 million dollars to build a school that they say is needed after closing another school down the street they say is not needed.  Is the money going for covering the practices of waste and abuse as we keep seeing here?  

  While writing this article, more pictures of more Gloucester County employees at Hardee's this morning are still coming in.  And we do not mean just one more.  We are getting flooded with these.





Hardee's
Hardee's (Photo credit: Wikipedia)



Enhanced by Zemanta

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Report Waste, Fraud and Abuse - Gloucester Government Employees




Here is what Virginia code says about the events we have been reporting about on both Friday and yesterday, July 29th, 2013.  Gloucester County government employees look like they are in very clear violation of state code.  We are going to help out our local officials by sending them copies of this code along with information on the Virginia WFA hotline so that we no longer have to go through having our tax dollars wasted.

Seeing a county government vehicle at a fastfood restaurant is personal use of a government vehicle.  According to state code, from what we see, this is a very serious offense.

  It's your tax dollars being wasted by county government employees.

This shows that county government officials have no control over their employees as we have had numerous reports of these abuses all within a few short days.  These are the same officials that want more tax money and want a 17 million dollar bond to build a school that is not needed.  When we looked over how they are going about obtaining that bond, we have some very serious questions there as well.  Those questions are on this site.



Here is how to report waste, fraud and abuse by government employees.  If you see any issues, remember, they are wasting your tax dollars taking money out of your pocket and everyone elses.  Local county government employees can also report on other county employees and even their bosses.  Waste, Fraud and Abuse is a rampant problem which is why this department at the state level had to be created.  Allowing Gloucester County government employees to continue this abuse is not in anyone's best interest.

  Tell your officials they need to clean up their acts.  Let them know that they will not get one more dollar in new taxes until they can show they can handle their own employees.

  In another few days we will be letting you know what to expect from the Gloucester County Board of Supervisors in the upcoming public bond hearing meeting.  We know exactly what they are going to do and we will tell you what to expect.

  Keep sending us those pictures of Gloucester government employees abusing the system.  We will keep sending them to Gloucester officials to let them know that the citizens of the county are not happy about this.



Enhanced by Zemanta

Monday, July 29, 2013

Government Truck Seen At Hardee's, Photo ID.





















This is a full size picture of Gloucester County government vehicle number 600 seen at the Hardee's today, July 29th, 2013 at 10:45 AM, in Hayes.  If you look to the far left, you can see the corner of the Taco Bell sign across the highway.  We cropped the other picture for vehicle identification purposes.  This is the same vehicle seen at the Hardee's at the courthouse area at 7:05 AM this morning.

  Anyone care to bet that the employees all go to McDonald's or Burger king for the rest of the week?  Maybe even Sonic's?  Send us your pictures of wherever you see them using government vehicles for personal use.  We will be happy to post them.  We can give you photo credit or keep your name off the information altogether.  Which ever works best for you.  Government employees are not supposed to use government vehicles for personal use.

 

Hardee's
Hardee's (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 
The classic Taco Bell logo used from 1985 to 1...
The classic Taco Bell logo used from 1985 to 1994. It is still in use at many older Taco Bell locations. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Enhanced by Zemanta