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hard to get
everywhere
If you think it’s hard to get public records here in Columbus County, look at the Town of Belhaven, where the mayor is suing the town to get access to records he needs to do his job.
This falls on the heels of a unanimous decision by the N.C. Court of Appeals on behalf of the community newspaper that serves Kitty Hawk. In that instance, the paper wanted to see what the Town of Kitty Hawk had paid landowners to condemn their land for a berm along N.C. 12, which frequently washes out during major storms.
The town withheld the records, saying that because the condemnation legal work was done by a law firm under contract, the records were not public.
The newspaper won the case hands down, but it had to spend thousands of dollars to see public records that any taxpayer should be entitled to see.
Fact is, in North Carolina, the Public Records Law and Open Meetings Law are weak. It seems like every time a new law is passed to make government more transparent, government lobbies like the League of Municipalities and Association of County Commissioners, find ways to offset the gain. Both groups have powerful allies in the General Assembly, so any change to make government and the records they hold more open is always going to be an uphill fight.
A new legislative session starts soon. There will be new initiatives by public advocacy and newspaper groups to get news laws to make government more open.
When one sees the egregious examples of closed government in places like Columbus County, Kitty Hawk and Belhaven, it would seem the push for more open government would be easy.
Hardly.