First Amendment & FOIA
Front-runner grabs majority of contributions
Andrew Conte and Mark Houser of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review analyzed and mapped campaign contributions for the Pittsburgh mayoral race. They found that “nearly two-thirds of the $1.2 million raised by front-runner Bob O’Connor … has come from outside the city.” A lot of O’Conner’s contributions were found to have come in large chunks. The story…
Read MoreAirport project shut down for environmental violations
Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Gazette filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain records on two logging contractors shut down for repeated environmental violations. Department of Environmental Protection records “showed that the agency cited Yeager [airport contractors] last month for two violations of its stormwater control permit on the slide repair work.”…
Read MoreLAPD spends millions over overtime budget
Jason Kandel of the Los Angeles Daily News obtained overtime expenditures from the Los Angeles Police Department and used Excel to analyze the data. He found that the LAPD has already overspent their overtime budget by $8 million with two months still remaining in the fiscal year. “The Los Angeles Police Department spent $62.8 million…
Read MoreConvicted youths escaping custody
Sheila Burke of The Tennessean used state data to show that “children convicted of crimes escaped from state custody more than 4,400 times during the past five years, often by simply walking away from foster homes or other unsecured facilities where they had been placed by the Department of Children’s Services.” Tennessee’s rate of escapes…
Read MoreAthletic department purchased banned supplements
Danny Robbins of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram used the Texas Public Information Act to show that “the Texas A&M University and University of Texas at Austin athletic departments have routinely purchased tens of thousands of dollars worth of dietary supplements labeled as containing ingredients that make them impermissible for distribution to student-athletes under National Collegiate…
Read MoreHighway project costing taxpayers millions more than originally projected
Kimball Payne and Bob Evans of the Hampton Daily Press uses a large number of documents, maps and thousands of e-mails to investigate a federal highway project that is projected to be completed two years past the original completion date and have an added cost of twice what the Virginia Department of Transportation had projected.…
Read MoreSpecial interest groups paying for congressional travel
Jeff Zeleny, Mike Dorning and Michael Tackett of the Chicago Tribune reviewed travel records for Illinois’ congressional delegation, finding that “at least 835 trips taken by either Illinois Congress members or their staff highlight the uneasy intersection between private dollars and public policy that raises questions about whether a special interest group is trying to…
Read MoreHome assessment accuracy up
Gregory S. Reeves of The Kansas City Star used Jackson County real estate data to show that “an old problem – over-valuing homes under $50,000 – may have gotten worse with the new property tax appraisals … and homes that sold for $600,000 and up remain under-appraised by 25 percent.” Most houses, the paper found,…
Read MoreSecurity chief’s use of plane, helicopter questioned
Eric Eyre and Scott Finn of the Charleston Gazette obtained flight records showing that West Virginia homeland security chief Neal Sharp “flew on the state plane or helicopter to attend meetings, scout disaster training sites and inspect emergency equipment” nineteen times in 19 months and chartered five additional private flights, prompting a state investigation. “All…
Read MorePolice failing to prevent false identifications
Bill Moushey and Nathan Crabbe of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, in conjunction with the Innocence Institute at Point Park University, investigated potential wrongful convictions in Pennsylvania, finding that “police failed to follow the steps that can help prevent false identifications.” Many police agencies in the state either were not aware of federal guidelines for eyewitness identifications…
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