From the Wilmington Star-News (7/21/09): Given the choice many, if not most, government officials would choose to conduct their business in secret. Thankfully, the decision isn’t left up to them. Under North Carolina law, the presumption is that government documents and meetings are open to the public unless an exemption is specifically written into the law.
Yet governing boards and agencies routinely break the law, in part because there’s little real consequence in doing so. The Honorables, who have managed to exempt themselves from many open-government provisions, have nevertheless agreed that citizens who have to go to court to get what is rightfully theirs should be compensated.
They’ve approved a bill that would require governments to pay the attorney fees of residents or organizations forced to sue to gain access to public information. The provision strengthens an earlier law that allowed but did not require a judge to award attorney fees to plaintiffs who prove the government unlawfully denied access to a public document or meeting.
The provision wasn’t strong enough. In one well publicized case a Chatham County woman spent more than $30,000 after the county commissioners improperly closed a public meeting. She won the case, but the judge, John Smith of Wilmington, awarded her only 10 percent of total fees because he didn’t think the commissioners meant to break the law.
Perhaps not – at first. But they fought the challenge, allowed a private citizen to spend thousands of dollars in legal fees and, ultimately, they lost because the law was on her side.
Lobbyists for governing boards tried their best to argue that changing the law would put an undue hardship on public officials.
The truth is, residents – not only “the media” – are far too often denied access to information that the law says should be accessible. In some cases, that’s because employees aren’t familiar with the requirements of open government laws; in other cases officials spend a good deal of time and effort trying to hide public information from the people. And without a significant penalty, there’s little impetus to comply, or to train public employees so unintentional violations don’t occur.
But the bill approved last week also aims to “help” government agencies comply with the law. It creates an Open Government Unit in the Attorney General’s Office to educate public officials and employees about the law and to mediate disagreements over public records and access to meetings.
This welcome addition may help resolve disputes before either side has to spend a lot of money on lawyers. More important, any effort to make sure the people who work for us understand and comply with state law is a positive step. Ignorance of the law isn’t a valid excuse to deny North Carolina residents what belongs to them, but it’s also a problem we can fix with a little training. If this unit can accomplish that goal, great.
But the best way to ensure compliance is to demand that our public officials understand and obey the state’s open government laws. The information is yours. Ask for it.
Star-News Staff Editorial