No lottery secrets

It may seem like small potatoes for the North Carolina lottery commission briefly to withhold the identity of companies intending to bid for contracts to operate the games -- information available in public records. After all, the lobbying that led to the lottery's passage is under investigation by a federal grand jury, and the games' eventual proceeds are already being drained for sky-high staff salaries. Still, any time a government official denies access to public information, it's a big deal.

Public records and information compiled by North Carolina government agencies are the property of the people under the laws of this state. That means "documents, papers, letters, maps, books, photographs, films, sound recordings, magnetic or other tapes, electronic data processing records, artifacts, or other documentary material, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received pursuant to law or ordinance in connection with the transaction of public business by any agency of North Carolina government or its subdivisions."

And just to make sure that lottery officials don't consider themselves outside state government some day, the General Assembly specifically applied the public records law to the lottery commission. Clearly then, the letters of intent submitted by Scientific Games, Oberthur Gaming Technologies and GTECH are property of the people.

Lottery staffers may have wanted to score points with their bosses on the commission by sparing them from having to read about the bidders in The News & Observer before yesterday's commission meeting. Denying information about them to The N&O's Dan Kane might have accomplished that. The fact is, though, the staff's actual bosses are the people who elected the public bodies that created the lottery commission.

The next time a member of the public asks the lottery commission for one of those items covered by North Carolina's public records law, the highly paid lottery staff should be aware of its legal obligation to produce the material in a timely manner. North Carolinians shouldn't have to tolerate secrecy in state-sponsored gambling any more than they've tolerated it in any other government enterprise.