There are no restrictions.
There are two folders sealed and restricted from public access for 75 years per Code of Virginia 42.1-78. The documents are communications designated as attorney-client privileged from the Attorney General's office involving Dept. of Transportation concerns.
Virginia. Dept. of Transportation, Commissioner's Correspondence, Day Files, 2007-2008 (Bulk 2007). Accession 44390, State Records collection, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.
Transferred by Russell Riter, Virginia Dept. of Transportation, Richmond, Virginia, 22, June 2009.
The Highway Safety Division was created to promote highway safety by an act of the General Assembly passed on April 4, 1968. The same act created the Highway Safety Commission to advise the division, and a coordinating committee to promote cooperation among state agencies in carrying out the highway safety program established by the division. An act passed by the General Assembly on April 10, 1978, abolished the division effective July 1, 1978, and created in its stead the Department of Transportation Safety under the Secretary of Transportation. The purpose of the Department of Transportation Safety was to investigate, evaluate, and promote the safe movement of people and property in the transportation modes of highways, air, water, rail, and mass transit. The duties of the Highway Safety Commission were assumed by the Board of Transportation Safety, and the coordinating committee was replaced by a coordinating supervisor who served under the director of the department. The General Assembly passed an an act on April 6, 1983, abolishing the department effective July 1, 1983, assigning its duties to the commissioner of the Division of Motor Vehicles, and creating a division of transportation safety under a deputy commissioner. The Board of Transportation Safety is currently within the Department of Motor Vehicles and advises the Governor, Secretary of Transportation, and the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles on transportation safety matters.
This series contains the administrative correspondence of the Commissioner for the Department of Transportation. These records are also called Day Files by the Department. The records consist of letters, memoranda, budgetary items and some reports involving substantive transportation issues such as road maintenance, construction and safety.
The Commissioner's Correspondence provides the "Day Files" of Commissioner David S. Ekern offering responses to constituent inquiries. The questions come in the form of faxes, e-mails and written letters and include draft and final copy of responses to constituent requests. Many issues of concern include road construction, bridge repairs, VDOT's purchasing of property for right of way purposes and the use of eminent domain by the department. There is information provided in the financial summary update for the Springfield interchange road construction in Northern Virgnia. The impact of traffic safety and congestion are of top concerns to the citizens of Virginia and are reflected in these files. The toll cost of the Dulles Greenway road generated citizen inquiry and the allowance of a single occupant (in a hybrid vehicle) access to popular HOV lanes (that are reserved for multiple occupants) and is a topic of much discussion within these correspondence.
There is documentation of litigation between the agency and businesses/citizens involving various types of disputes. There are indices before each new month of the correspondence providing the date, names, and topics of concerns within the various requests. The records were microfilmed by the department before they were transferred to the library and each document has an assigned handwritten number reflecting the order of filming.
Arranged chronologically by date of correspondence.