Richmond committee delays votes after hours-long debate over proposed FOIA library and administration rubric

The Governmental Operations Committee paused action on two competing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) proposals on a split over scope and discretion, voting on Oct. 23 to continue both measures to the November committee meeting.

The committee considered Ordinance 2025‑2‑10, introduced by Council member Gibson, which would create an online FOIA request-and-response library designed to make requests and responses public by default, and Ordinance 2025‑2‑40, an administration-backed approach that would publish a publicly posted rubric guiding what the city would place in a FOIA library.

The debate focused on whether a citywide ordinance should remove discretionary judgment by staff about what to publish or instead allow the administration to apply a published rubric that it could update over time. Council member Gibson argued the council’s ordinance would “remove discretion from the administration” and give the public access to records broadly. The administration said it favored a flexible, published rubric to…