FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST

Ms. Amber Lee Amato
Director of Constituent Services
Office of Governor Timothy M. Kaine

SUBJECT: Freedom of Information Request

Dear Ms. Amato,

Thank you very much for answering my previous Freedom of Information requests.

The correspondence you sent concerning TriData’s arrangements with the State of Virginia to write the Review Panel Report has raised new questions. Specifically, the letters of August 17, 2009, and April 26, 2007 list ambiguous job descriptions with hourly pay. (I assume it is an hourly pay scale, because the letters do not indicate that.)

Would you provide me with the following?

1. Please provide me with the names of the people attached to each position in the letter. For example, Corporate Program Director, Jane or John Doe.

2. Please provide me with the total amount paid each person for his or her role in the production of the report. For example, Senior Production Director, Jane or John Doe, $xxx.

3. Please define the role for each category of TriData officer working on the report. The titles are ambiguous and really do not say what an individual did in her or his capacity. For example: Senior Communications & Media Specialist. What is that? Is that a public relations person or a specialist in the production of finished reports? It is not clear.

4. If the job description cited in the preceding question is a public relations person, would you provide me with the justification for hiring a public relations specialist? TriData paid a Senior Law Enforcement Specialist approximately half the hourly rate they paid a public relations specialist. It would appear that TriData’s priorities are misplaced. The report is about the worst school shooting in this nation’s history—common sense tells me the contributions of a law enforcement specialist are worth far more than a PR person. Why did the state go along with this?

5. Please provide me with the amount of profit TriData Corporation took in from this report after expenses.

Ms. Amato, again, I appreciate your time, patience, and effort in responding to my requests. Preventing school shootings is very important to my family. We lost the mother of our oldest grandchild at the shooting at the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Virginia, on January 16, 2002.

It is my belief that unless serious and thorough analyses of these shootings are done, it is only a matter a time before another school shooting takes place. For your information, this letter is being posted on my blog, www.aquestionofaccountability.com, and may appear in one or more Virginia newspapers. Your response will be published on the blog when I receive it.

Thanking you in advance


Yours sincerely,



David Cariens, Jr.