FOIA Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

State Treasurer Warns 6 Banks They May Be Added To ‘Restricted’ List

Treasurer Riley Moore has sent letters to six financial institutions warning them their environmental, social and governance policies could cost them state contracts.

West Virginia’s treasurer has warned a new set of banks they may be barred from engaging in contracts with the state.

Treasurer Riley Moore has sent letters to six financial institutions warning them their environmental, social and governance policies could cost them state contracts.

The restricted financial institutions list arose from Senate Bill 262, which became law in 2022.

Moore initially placed five banks on the list: BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo.

Kentucky enacted a similar law the same year, though the Kentucky treasurer’s office has different banks on its list.

Through a Freedom of Information Act Request, the banks that received the new letters are: BMO Bank, Citibank, Fifth Third, Northern Trust, TD Bank and HSBC.

They have 45 days to prove they are not engaged in a boycott of fossil fuel companies, or they will be added to the list.

A report last year from the Sierra Club showed that four of the five banks originally on the West Virginia Treasurer’s list – Goldman Sachs, Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo – are among the top providers of financing to utility companies that burn coal.

Citibank and TD Bank are also among the companies supporting coal-burning utilities.

Three of the banks on the combined list – Chase, Citi and Wells Fargo – are among the top six providers of financing to coal-burning utilities.

The three banks have committed to align their financing with the Paris Agreement and the Net Zero Banking Alliance yet have injected billions of dollars into coal-consuming utilities since 2016.

Report Critical of W.Va.’s Prison Food System

A report published by the West Virginia Center on Budget Policy said inmates receive highly processed, low nutrient foods that negatively impact their health and cost taxpayers more.

The report indicates inmates used to grow fresh produce outside and in greenhouses to cook healthy fresh meals under a state run prison food service program. However, as prison populations grew, the state looked to save money by signing a contract with Aramark food service.

Aramark is a national food service provider. The company received fines due to maggot infested food and food that had been tainted by rats. The food provider has also been cited for serving expired or unrefrigerated food products, the report said.

The authors of the report filed a Freedom of information act to find out how much the state pays Aramark, and to answer questions about conflict of interest. So far, they have not been able to receive any information.

In 2019 West Virginia lawmakers passed The Fresh Food Act that required 5 percent of the purchases made by Aramark to be fresh produce or meat from West Virginia producers. However, the Agriculture Commissioner complained in 2022 that the company has failed to comply with the law, and that the Department of Agriculture has no tools to enforce the law.

The West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitations issued a statement that said the organization is committed to the safety, quality of life, and wellbeing of those in the care of the legal system in the state and continually work to provide nutritional meals and quality of health care to those placed in their care.

PSC Hid Terms Of Contract With Consultant. Then, Cost Doubled

The PSC contracted with Critical Technologies last year to review the fuel management practices of Appalachian Power at its three West Virginia power plants.

The price of a contract between the West Virginia Public Service Commission and an Arizona consulting firm nearly doubled, but the reasons are not clear.

On July 19, the PSC and Critical Technologies Consulting, of Mesa, Arizona, agreed to a change order that increased the cost of their contract from $288,000 to $522,000.

The PSC contracted with Critical Technologies last year to review the fuel management practices of Appalachian Power at its three West Virginia power plants.

Critical Technologies was the winning bidder among four firms that submitted proposals.

WVPB obtained the change order through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The document did not explain why the change was made or what additional services were provided.

The consultant’s report could influence the PSC’s decision on whether to approve the utility’s application to recover $641.7 million from electricity users in West Virginia – a potential $20 a month increase on their bills.

The PSC held an evidentiary hearing on the matter this week.

PSC filings concealed information about payments and services involving Critical Technologies and its three rival firms. The agency cited “trade secrets” as justification for shielding those details from public view.

In a June filing, the PSC warned that disclosing pricing information risked increasing the cost of contracts to the agency.

Patrick McGinley, a professor at the West Virginia University College of Law, said government agencies should be transparent about how they spend public funds.

“Contracts should be public,” he said.

For example, McGinley, said, WVU President Gordon Gee’s contract is publicly available, with no redactions, or information concealed from public view.

So is a contract the PSC agreed to just this week. The agency will pay Van Reen Accounting LLC $122,000 to perform an audit to determine whether Mon Power electricity customers in West Virginia should be reimbursed for company lobbying expenses related to the HB 6 scandal in Ohio.

A decade ago, the railroad companies Norfolk Southern and CSX sued a Maryland agency to prevent the public disclosure of information about flammable crude oil shipments by rail. A judge ruled against the railroads and in favor of the news organizations requesting the data through open records law. The railroads lost a similar effort in Pennsylvania.

Invoking exemptions to open records law is not always justified, McGinley said.

“They hope people go away,” he said. “And they usually do.”

A spokeswoman for the PSC could not explain why the price of the Critical Technologies contract nearly doubled, nor what additional services the consulting firm provided.

Appalachian Power is an underwriter of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Democratic Group Files Lawsuit To Have Justice Release Work Schedule, Calendar

The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee demands Gov. Jim Justice release his official schedule and calendar from 2017 to the present.

The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee has filed a lawsuit in Kanawha County Circuit Court saying Gov. Jim Justice has failed to comply with a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request to release his official schedule and calendar from 2017 to the present. The suit demands the records be released.

David Bergstein, the DSCC communications director, said there are key reasons the U.S. Senate candidate cannot hide his work schedule, or lack thereof, from West Virginians.

“This has been an ongoing pattern with Justice, where there’s been media reporting about his lack of availability, how hard he’s working, whether he’s actually doing the job,” Bernstein said. “We believe that he needs to disclose these schedules and calendars.”

A DSCC press release on the lawsuit notes what the committee calls a key point from the lawsuit filing.

“The last time he produced such records — in 2019 — they showed that Justice ‘almost never meets with his Cabinet, is rarely at the capital and was largely missing at one of the most critical points of [the] year’s legislative session,’ the press release stated.

The press release provides links to show that in March and April the DSCC filed a FOIA request seeking copies of records containing scheduled official meetings involving Justice, his chief of staff, deputy chief of staff and his general counsel from January 2017 to the present.

Justice General Counsel J. Berkeley Bentley “denied the request in full, citing out of state precedent and exceptions in West Virginia law which clearly do not apply to the materials sought.”

Justice will face U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat.

“There is already a very nasty and contentious primary fight happening between Justice and Mooney,” Bergstein said. “This may be an area which becomes a conversation in that primary campaign between those two Republican opponents, but they’re already really going after each other. And we’re sure that the Justice work schedule will receive further scrutiny during the primary.”

The DSCC works to elect Democrats to the U.S. Senate.

Justice’s office said it has no comment on the lawsuit at this time.

ACLU Receives Documents Regarding Recent Treatment Of BLM Protesters In Martinsburg

The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia received documents from the City of Martinsburg Friday afternoon — all related to treatment of Black Lives Matter protesters in late May.

The ACLU-WV filed a freedom of information act request more than a month ago, and having not received the documents within the legally mandated time frame, filed a lawsuit earlier Friday. The documents arrived thereafter.

The ACLU-WV filed a lawsuit against the city of Martinsburg in Berkeley County Circuit Court because city officials had notresponded to a public records request submitted more than 50 days ago, according to an ACLU spokesperson.

Within about an hour of filing the lawsuit, the City agreed to provide the requested documents. The ACLU-WV said they received documents late Friday afternoon related to police treatment of 11 protesters.

The organization required such records as bodycam and dashcam footage from Martinsburg Police officers involved in the arrest of 11 Black Lives Matter protesters on May 30 and 31. The request asks for names and badge numbers, official procedures when interacting with protesters, and use-of-force policies.

The request was submitted by the ACLU-WV on behalf of the Berkeley County Unity Coalition, a newly formed group of civil and human rights organizations, educators and faith leaders.

The group said the 11 arrested protesters were forced to sit in jail with excessively high bails amid a health pandemic, and that officers used excessive force and escalated tensions.

The ACLU-WV said they aren’t prepared to dismiss their lawsuit until the documents are reviewed.

The Martinsburg Police Department did not immediately respond for comment.

In an emailed statement from Kin Sayre, Martinsburg’s city attorney, he states the City of Martinsburg replied to the ACLU-WV’s FOIA on Jun. 23, 2020 acknowledging the request and indicating “the City would need time to assemble the data.”

Sayre also noted “the City has not been served on the lawsuit.”

Gov. Tomblin Signs Bill to Expand FOIA

Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin has signed a bill expanding some access of public records, while eliminating public disclosure of who owns concealed carry permits.

The Democrat approved the legislation Wednesday.

The bill exempts names, addresses and details of who has concealed handgun permits from Freedom of Information Act requests.

Meanwhile, it requires the secretary of the state to maintain a database of FOIA requests.

It says records requests can carry a charge based on the cost of reproducing materials, not on man hours.

It says access to public records should be presumed, minus exemptions.

The bill clarifies how public record is defined to include documents received by a public body, instead of just prepared by one.

The West Virginia Press Association applauded the expanded access, but opposed the firearms exemption.