Looking to drum up new business, Tony Gazzo makes a public records request to the Rockyham County property tax office for a report listing the names, addresses, and amounts owed for all real property owners who are delinquent on their … Read more

The town’s governing board wants to be more transparent. They direct the clerk to post all agendas, attachments, minutes, and budgets on the town’s website.  The IT director, who manages the website, suggests that these documents should be converted to … Read more

A really hot topic is occupying the city council: to allow food trucks or not to allow food trucks, that is the question. Local restaurants are opposed, but the trucks are really popular and may revive downtown foot traffic. The … Read more

Texting, tweeting, emailing, blogging, posting: members of public boards are doing this during meetings using their private or publicly-issued electronic devices, and communicating with each other, with individuals or groups attending the meeting, and with individuals and groups anywhere in … Read more

State law prohibits general public access to most public employee records. The parallel statutes that govern city and county employee records, as well as several of the separate statutes that govern other types of public agencies, contain provisions that allow … Read more

Cell phones and other mobile devices have become essential tools for public employees and officials. Governmental agencies may purchase mobile devices and issue them to employees and officials, or may reimburse employees and officials who use their privately-owned devices for … Read more

The “digital age” has been upon us for many years, but the legal system continues to struggle to keep pace with the fundamental transformation it has caused in the way people communicate and generate and store information. The discovery of … Read more

Under Section G.S. 132-1.4(c) of the North Carolina Public Records law, the contents of 911 calls are public information, except for certain information specified in the statute. This provision was modified in An Act To Provide That a Transcript or … Read more

The basic concept behind North Carolina public records law is simple:  all government records are “property of the people.”  As such, they must be made available upon request for free or minimal cost unless a statute specifically exempts a particular … Read more

In this blog post about citizen information, I noted that some local governments had obtained local legislation to protect email subscriber lists from some kinds of public access. Effective April 21, 2011, that law now applies to all local governments. This … Read more