From the Burlington Times-News (3/8/13): It’s Sunshine Week. That’s an expression that usually doesn’t register with people caught up in the basic tasks of going to work, getting kids to school and running the dozens of errands that have to be accomplished in a given week.
But it’s pretty important nonetheless.
Sunshine Week is the time every year when newspapers across America call attention to the significance of open meetings and public records laws in our free society.
These state and federal laws aren’t for newspaper, TV and online reporters only. Everyone benefits from government openness. Transparency laws make it possible. The laws keep the public’s business public. They bring accountability to government. They encourage honesty and discourage corruption.