Roanoke City Council members may not like what the public has to say about huge raises. But they’ll have to listen.

Roanoke City Council ordinarily leaves no navel ungazed upon when deciding even the nit-pickiest of issues. For substantial decisions, months drag by in briefings and meetings that offer ample opportunity for all to be heard. So it is astounding that council initially failed to consider that the public might have something to say about the 28.5 percent raises the majority wishes to grant itself.

It looks as though those hankering for a big raise wanted to slip something by unnoticed. Fat chance. The raises are the talk of the town, and the town now will have two chances to speak directly to the council members. Those opportunities, though, come merely as a byproduct of the majority ensuring they are all in attendance for two consecutive meetings so that the vote goes in their favor.

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In Cuccinelli’s office, there’s nothing free about freedom of information.

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s office is proving that there’s nothing free about Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act, certainly not when it comes to requests about communications with Star Scientific and its embattled but generous CEO, Jonnie Williams Sr.

Roanoke Times reporter David Ress asked the attorney general’s office for records of communications that Cucc­inelli or his staff has had with Williams about the $1.7 million in state taxes and penalties that Star Scientific is contesting in court. Ress noted on the newspaper’s Blue Ridge Caucus blog that he also wanted to find out if Cuccinelli and Gov. Bob McDonnell or members of their staffs had traded thoughts on the issue.

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The U.S. Supreme Court says Virginia can refuse public documents to out-of-state residents, but lawmakers can ensure access for all.

While reading the recent U.S. Supreme Court opinion on Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act, it’s easy to imagine Justice Samuel Alito scrawling out the ruling with a quill pen.

Alito concludes that “most founding-era English cases” and 19th century American law “do not support the proposition that a broad-based right to access public information was widely recognized in the early Republic. … FOIA laws are of relatively recent vintage.”

Regrettably, Alito’s conclusions are shared by a unanimous court, but Virginia lawmakers are still free to embrace the Information Age and revise the state’s outdated sunshine law.

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By Michelle Ferrier

The North Carolina General Assembly is considering the rollback of a long-time requirement for some local governments that legal notices be printed in the local newspaper, a revenue stream for publishers totaling millions of dollars a year. States across the country, including Virginia, have been gnawing on the issue as well.

Should HB 504 become law, nine North Carolina counties and municipalities within those counties would no longer be dependent on their local newspapers as a vehicle for notification of bids for state contracts, announcements of property foreclosures, or disclosure of other government or legal business. The counties could instead post notices on their own electronic servers.

What might be lost? The local newspaper itself, most likely, as publications face technological disruptions and the great collapse of revenue from classified, display and subscriptions income streams. It’s no secret that the print journalism industry is already struggling to reinvent itself in our brave new digital world.

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Ferrier is an associate professor at Elon University and vice president of Journalism That Matters, a collaboration of journalists, technologists, librarians, educators and others helping to shape the new news ecology through journalism innovation, technology and interdisciplinary conversation.

Secret deals made by elected officials aren’t enforceable, and they won’t stay secret.

Some government officials scurry behind closed doors when possible to avoid questions from pesky constituents. But elected representatives who stray beyond the appropriate bounds of a closed meeting and attempt to make policy decisions often discover that secrecy can backfire.

Bedford County residents can’t know which of their leaders said what, but any off-the-books commitments made on funding for a new middle school aren’t worth a plugged nickel today.

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Briefing the public on matters that matter.

The observation of Sunshine Week allows us to highlight some of the hurdles to an open, transparent government that is the hallmark of good government. It also affords the chance to recognize a government that has listened to our concerns and taken a leap into the sunlight.

Roanoke City Council deserves such recognition for moving its monthly briefings from a cramped basement room, which few observers could squeeze into, to its council chambers that welcomes with a comfortable seat those who trek to the Noel C. Taylor Municipal Building and also makes the meetings accessible to those at home or in the office.

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Let judges decide if they want to try having cameras in their courtrooms.

When talk turns to government transparency, legislative and executive records typically receive the most attention. Reporters and citizens speculate about what is contained in White House legal documents justifying drone attacks or what goes on when a town council meets behind closed doors.

The third branch of government deserves attention, too, especially during Sunshine Week. Open government is just as important in the judiciary as the other two branches of government.

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If the Supreme Court doesn’t open Virginia’s FOIA, lawmakers should.

Virginia was on trial before the Supreme Court last month. The question in the case is whether the commonwealth may limit its Freedom of Information Act to Virginians only. In other words, may it deny public records to requesters who live outside the state?

During the hearing, Justice Antonin Scalia wondered, “Is it the law that the state of Virginia cannot do anything that’s pointless? Only the federal government can do stuff that’s pointless?”

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Pittsylvania County leaders erred two ways in a recent vote.

Rural Pittsylvania County has received plenty of unwanted press of late. Between a fight over uranium mining and a lawsuit over sectarian prayers before public meetings, the county has some image rehabilitation to do. Supervisors did not help the cause last week when they eliminated the county Economic Development Office on a 4-3 vote.

Maybe that department needed to go as a cost-saving measure. Other county staff might be able to pick up the slack. It does seem odd, however, that a remote county that has fallen on tough economic times would choose to forgo one of the best tools to attract employers that can turn things around.

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If Mark Twain had faced government censors, Huck Finn would be blacked out.

The Freedom of Information Act gives citizens the right to review government documents.

It has enabled curious researchers to discover terrible government abuses and wonderful government successes.

Yet too many elected officials prefer secrecy. They whittle away at the public’s right to know, exempting this or that sort of information from FOIA. Virginia law includes more than 100 exemptions, and their number and scope seem to increase every time the General Assembly is in session.

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Chapter 1, Paragraph 2 of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain:

Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars apiece — all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round — more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn’t stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.