NC Open Government

News & Observer (5/2/2014): Wake County Superior Court Judge Bryan Collins will review UNC-Chapel Hill records that show enrollments of athletes in fraudulent classe as part of a public records lawsuit brought by the newspaper. 

At a town hall-style meeting of the Lee County commissioners last month, residents were required to give their names to a security guard before being allowed onto the property. The meeting was in a private, gated-community. One of the residents, Joseph Calendine, who was initially turned away by the security guards before giving his name filed a lawsuit Friday against the commissioners. He's asking the court for an injunction requiring the commissioners to comply with the North Carolina Open Meetings Law. 

Sunshine Day 2014 will be held on Monday, March 17 on the campus of Elon University. Check here for information about late registration, parking and finding the Lakeside conference rooms on campus

WRAL (3/13/14): A lawyer who practices unemployment law sued the state under the open records law earlier this month after the Division of Employment Security announced plans to reduce the frequency of releases about people who are denied benefits. A superior court judge issued a temporary injunction Thursday preventing the division from making that change until the case is heard. 

Wilson Daily Times (3/9/14):  The Attorney General's Office sent Middlesex a letter suggesting that it should reconsider its policy of charging $34 an hour for requests that take more than 30 minutes to fulfill. The letter also offered to mediate disputes between residents and the town

Sanford Herald (3/8/14): Lee County commissioners held a town hall-style meeting in the private Carolina Trace community Friday night. Residents who refused to give their names to the Carolina Trace security guard were denied entry. 

From WUNC (3/7/2014): Conservative think tank Civitas  Institute made a public records request last fall for the emails of UNC law professor Gene Nichol. Professors from around the state decried the records request as politically motivated.  One thousand emails were recently turned over to Civitas, which after analyzing them says an anti-poverty program put together by Nichol amounted to a political activity. Nichol is director of UNC's Center on Poverty. 

The Watauga County Board of Education is holding a special meeting to consider the use of a book, "The House of the Spirits," by a high school class. Rather than require the public to obtain tickets in advance, the meeting is being moved to a larger space in the county courthouse. 

In 2011 LexisNexis sought to copy a court records database controlled by the Administrative Office of the Courts. AOC claimed it was not the custodian of the database and declined to turn it over. The Court of Appeals ruled in favor of LexisNexis. 

Carolina Public Press: In response to Attorney General Roy Cooper's letter criticising the public records policy of the governor's office requiring special charges for records requests that take more than 30 minutes to fill, the governor's general counsel, Bob Stephens cited Asheville and Charlotte as examples of local governments that also have special surcharge policies. The Carolina Public Press caught up with municipal workers who handle public records in those places and said that charges are rarely, if ever, assessed.