Certain types of meetings appear to exclude public attendance—even when the planning is holistic in nature (not a specific site plan) —permitting developers, approved “stakeholders” and staff to meet and consider planning during “office hours” in a way which limits public discussions public and skirts public “sunshine” laws.
- The County appears to design county-led meetings which may circumvent the public from accessing meeting notes and records and attending meetings. These activities may violate under Freedom of Information Act and Virginia Sunshine Laws § 2.2-3712 (G).
- Arlington charges substantial fees for Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) Requests. The FOIA archive is not comprehensive.
- See Example 13.1.1 for additional examples of issues with Open Data Portal and data/information requests.
The County appears to design county-led meetings which may circumvent the public from accessing meeting notes and records and attending meetings. These activities may even violate Freedom of Information Act and Virginia Sunshine Laws § 2.2-3712 (G).547
Pentagon City Sector Plan (PCSP): Preventing the public and alternates to observe county-led meetings and take meeting minutes.
Public perception is that the majority of meetings held on the PCSP process were closed to public and did not produce published meeting notes what was discussed in the meetings. It was closed to the public for observation and even alternate representatives to the process were not allowed to observe.
Staff emails (below) explaining closed county meetings with developers, staff and a small handful of residents are “by-design” to have no meeting notes and invite-only format.
545 Ibid.
546 Ibid.
547 https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title2.2/chapter37/section2.2-3712/
Arlington charges substantial fees for Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) Requests. The FOIA archive is not comprehensive.
The County Charges Significant Fees for FOIA Requests and May Fail to Provide Information.
FOIA Request invoices have been over a thousand dollars.548, 549, 550 Some topics may be off limits.551
Responses, or lack thereof, may show that the County fails to meet the spirit of the law. In one example, a resident asked for a copy of the post card and number sent to a specific zip code (reference C001092-080422). Only a copy of the post card was provided.552, 553 The resident then submitted a second, very detailed and larger request (C001327- 092822)554 when the first did not result in a full response. This increased the amount of time the community and County needs to spend responding to such requests. The limited sample size of 25 in the FOIA system makes it difficult to see trends in requests and responses.
Additionally, the lack of comprehensive FOIA responses may cause the community to seek further accountability and recourse beyond the County.555
549 https://www.arlingtonva.us/Government/Programs/FOIA
550 https://arlingtoncountyva.govqa.us/WEBAPP/_rs/(S(wuv1k1kyc5u1piu0fpihuiaz))/supporthome.aspx
551 https://www.virginiamercury.com/2018/07/30/the-right-to-know-just-because-youre-allowed-to-doesnt-mean-you-have-to/
552 https://sungazette.news/letter-county-leaders-not-acting-in-good-faith-on-missing-middle/
553https://arlingtoncountyva.govqa.us/WEBAPP/_rs/(S(h2aah1bm01tnxff1mizs3hi1))/RequestArchiveDetails.aspx?rid=1883&view=1
554https://arlingtoncountyva.govqa.us/WEBAPP/_rs/(S(q5mzbrk55xgov253ebe4n3xd))/RequestArchiveDetails.aspx?rid=2244&view=1
555 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/29/why-naacp-branch-asked-justice-investigate-arlington-county/
FOIA requests prior to October 2021 are not accessible to the public.
The County’s FOIA page states that “The archive of County FOIA responses dating prior to October 2021 has not been migrated to the new website. The FOIA response website archive consisted of 255 requests dating from 2016 – 2021. Currently, County staff are evaluating ways to migrate the archive for public reference purposes, but that work has not been scheduled.”556
The County should make the prior requests and responses available, which would be consistent with the stated purpose of the FOIA database creation557 and prior award.558
556 https://www.arlingtonva.us/Government/Programs/FOIA
557 https://www.insidenova.com/news/arlington/arlington-government-now-putting-foia-responses- online/article_32772190-2b1e-11e6-9fd2-5728571d2b71.html
558 https://www.opengovva.org/blog/2016-open-government-award-winners