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The Spotsylvania Sheriff’s Office has released footage from the May 20 School Board meeting showing the minutes just after the closed session at which Board member Lisa Phelps alleges fellow Board member Nicole Cole assaulted her. Body-worn cameras from two deputies captured the footage, which the Advance requested under the Freedom of Information Act. The two videos, which are embedded below, show the same interactions from different angles. The meeting was not being livestreamed at the time this footage was captured.

At a recent Frederick County Board of Supervisors meeting, Red Bud Supervisor Blaine Dunn said "nobody should walk out of here feeling physically threatened" if they speak during public comment periods. He stressed he's concerned that some recent meetings, which he said should be "business meetings," have at times seemed like a "political rally" due to the volume of applause that sometimes occurs. Board Chair Josh Ludwig said he has not personally witnessed anything at meetings in the last six months that should make anyone feel "threatened or put upon." He said that county residents can always contact him or county officials, if they feel otherwise. "In my opinion, if they were to restrict that ability to boo, they would likewise have to restrict an individual's ability to clap or give an applause," said Christie Scarborough.

Nottoway School Board member Bill Outlaw is publicly criticizing Superintendent Dr. Tameshia Grimes for what he calls her “excessive” travel and time out of the office. Outlaw voiced his concerns Thursday night, June 13th, as the Board held a First Reading of a proposed new policy that would require the Supt. and executive team to get Board approval, in advance, before attending various conferences and meetings. Dr. Grimes said Outlaw’s comparison of her expenditures to those in other school divisions “is NOT apples-to-apples.” She also said that when a School Board member asks her for information, “they receive EVERYTHING. It’s not parsed. It’s not like a FOIA request where it’s narrowly-focused.” But she said that if an “outsider” — a board member from another county — had requested the same information, “they would have gotten different information.”

Attorneys suing state officials over its troubled foster care system say the state is attempting to shield emails, documents and more that could shed light on how the state has responded to the crisis. The West Virginia Department of Human Services — formerly part of the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources — has already been sanctioned this year for its role in failing to preserve emails from former top foster care officials related to the case. West Virginia attorneys, along with New York-based nonprofit A Better Childhood, filed the lawsuit on behalf of children in 2019, alleging the mistreatment of thousands of kids in state foster care. In new filings this month, the attorneys said that state officials requested deliberative process privilege to exempt at least 2,610 documents from being reviewed as part of the suit.

A Massachusetts SUPERIOR COURT judge has ordered state Auditor Diana DiZoglio to remove redactions from audits her office released last year involving medical care and inmate deaths in jails operated by two sheriffs’ departments. DiZoglio’s office had invoked an exemption from the state public records law in redacting passages in the reports, claiming their release could jeopardize public safety or cybersecurity, but Suffolk Superior Court Judge Michael Pineault ruled that the redactions were not justified. “The redacted passages . . . do little more than set forth — at a high level of generality — [the Office of the State Auditor’s] recommendation that the [sheriffs’] departments develop additional written information technology policies and procedures and provide more IT training to their employees,” Pineault said in his nine-page decision. “The Court finds none of the recommendations to be particularly revelatory.”