Watchdogs One week ago today The Times-Dispatch joined its media colleagues in opening Sunshine Week, an annual occurrence that draws attention to the free flow of information on which self-government depends. During the span, stories and editorials addressed the Freedom of Information Act, open government, disclosure, and other items related to sunshine. The principle is simple: The public’s business is public.

CleartheMurk Unlike their counterparts who run for the House—not to mention candidates for president—candidates for the U.S. Senate submit campaign-finance reports on paper, rather than electronically. They submit the paperwork to the Senate Office of Public Records, which then trucks it over to the Federal Election Commission, which then pays clerical staff to enter the information into electronic databases.

Wilder’s unit had seven wrecks from 2005 to’08 Richmond police officers blamed for three crashes but charged in none At 1:40 a.m. on a Thursday last October, a 2006 Mercury crashed into a deer on state Route 5 in Charles City County. The wreck caused $1,713 in damage to the car’s front end but no injuries to its occupants. It’s an accident that typically would get little notice, except it involved a Richmond Police Department unit assigned to provide 24-hour security to then-Mayor L. Douglas Wilder.

Suit led to settlement being made public Open-records law was used to report on drug-linked wrongful-death cases Editor’s note: To mark Sunshine Week, each day we’re highlighting a different example of how we used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain documents that helped us bring you the full story. Sunshine Week ends today. In a challenge brought by the Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Free Lance-Star of Fredericksburg, the Virginia Supreme Court last year affirmed that wrongful-death settlements are public documents that cannot be kept confidential.

Requests revealed office’s disarray Uncashed checks in Goochland utilities agency led to changes Editor’s note: To mark Sunshine Week, each day we’re highlighting a different example of how we used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain documents that helped us bring you the full story. Sunshine Week ends Saturday. Rumors about disorganization in Goochland County’s utilities department had been swirling for years.

Good, and Better Time was, a citizen interested in following the deliberations of the state legislature faced daunting obstacles. Reading bills required a trek to the General Assembly building to pick up pounds of paper printouts. Votes were hard to follow. To watch a floor session, you had to be there. Technology has made life—and public access to vital democratic information—much easier. Virginians now can read bills online, keep up with their progress the same way, and watch streaming video of Assembly proceedings from the comfort of an easy chair. They also can track political contributions through, e.g., the Virginia Public Access Project. And they can see how well various state agencies are meeting their goals by looking at their scorecards on Virginia Performs, a Web site set up by the Kaine administration to improve agency accountability.

Va. posts many public records online The state ranks fifth in a survey of open government and access Unless you’re looking for death certificates, hospital inspections or a handful of other official state documents, chances are you can find them online in Virginia. A new survey finds Virginia ranks among the top states when it comes to posting public records online.

Pitchforks Today marks the opening of Sunshine Week, which annually celebrates openness in government and public affairs. Sunshine Week recognizes the value of transparency. The principle is most often manifested in the Freedom of Information Act, requirements for open meetings by public bodies, and disclosure of finances and interests. Our focus today falls on judicial selection in Virginia.

This year, state lawmakers realized that embracing transparency was not just good government but good politics. The decision by the House of Delegates to record a lawmaker’s vote in subcommittee highlighted efforts during the 2009 General Assembly to promote openness in government and increase public access to information.

WILLIAMSBURG Regardless of whether one supports or disfavors President Obama’s stimulus plan, there’s one thing that just about everyone can agree on: We, the taxpayers, have a right to know where and how the stim ulus money will be spent. This is our money (that is, what money isn’t borrowed), and just as importantly, this is our government. Republican and Democrat alike, these are our representatives making policy decisions we elected them to make. We have the right (and some would say the duty) to examine the choices those leaders are making in our names and on our behalf.

Freedom of Information Is the Foundation of a Free Press Some of the most exciting writing we do here in the Richmond Times-Dispatch newsroom never gets published. It reads like this: “This is a request under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act . . . .“ With those words, we recently found out that: