Sunshine Day to highlight public access to government records

ELON, N.C. (AP) -- Criminal records. Information about local school boards or governments. The salaries of city mayors, lawmakers or county officials. A conference being held at Elon University on Thursday will help citizens, journalists and anyone else learn how to request such information through North Carolina's open records laws, often called "sunshine laws." Gov. Mike Easley has designated Thursday "Sunshine Day." The conference will feature an interactive case study of public records and preview a joint publication on open government from the Attorney General's Office and the North Carolina Press Association. Speakers also will discuss the successes and failures of open government last year. The conference is being sponsored by the Sunshine Center of the North Carolina Open Government Coalition. --- On the Net: North Carolina Open Government Coalition: http://www.ncopengov.org (Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)