Secrecy defies law's spirit

North Carolinians got good news Wednesday when Gov. Mike Easley ordered the state Department of Transportation to release all records on a $3.6 million outside assessment of the department, information The N&O had sought and others had demanded afterward.

He also said the DOT had to require a written report from the consultant, McKinsey & Co., which apparently had given DOT officials briefings orally and, one official said mysteriously, "on their software."

Easley's decision seemed all the more sensible because of the baffling series of choices by the transportation department, whose efforts at secrecy seemed counter to its stated purpose of commissioning the study to improve the DOT and regain public confidence.

I'm afraid that the DOT's actions were only the extreme end of a trend in North Carolina. Modern-day electronic record-keeping should make it easier than ever to keep government open and accountable, but some agencies (not all, it's important to note) are instead getting more creative about avoiding disclosure.

In this case, the DOT:

• Signed a contract agreeing to keep secret most details of the contract and consultant McKinsey & Co.'s work.
• Initially asked for a report and then backed off. The tactic of not generating a written report - so there's no record - has been tried before. More than one public entity has had information presented in a meeting and then taken back, so the public officials at the meeting could say they hadn't received documents.

Before Easley acted, we were considering going to court against the DOT. That's another sign of trouble for the public.

Government agencies have lawyers paid with tax funds. Recently, one public official responded to my questions about access by saying: "You can sue me."

In my view, people who hold public office should be looking at ways to keep their processes open, not ways to hide things. When I call a public official, I am arguing for access, not arguing a court case.

When the debates focus on shades of meaning in North Carolina's public records law, I think citizens should worry. The people in charge of public records are the appointed or elected officials who run the agencies that collect the records, not the lawyers.

Instead of searching for legal loopholes, these stewards of the public trust might do better to consider the spirit of a law that basically says every record and process of government should be open unless there's a specific and compelling reason otherwise.

Hours after Easley's order was made public, I sat down with senior editors -- not to celebrate, but to talk about our next public records fight.

In this case, the records relate to deaths of North Carolinians in public facilities.

We have a meeting scheduled with the agency to discuss, we hope, how information gathered in the public interest can be shared, not hidden.