UPDATE August 2013: In 2011, a new exception was enacted to limit access to local government email subscriber lists. Click here for a summary of this exception. Local governments work hard to engage and inform their citizens. Technology now provides an increasing number of ways to provide information to and receive information from citizens.

UPDATE August 2013: In 2011, a new exception was enacted to limit access to local government email subscriber lists. Click here for a summary of this exception. Local governments work hard to engage and inform their citizens. Technology now provides an increasing number of ways to provide information to and receive information from citizens.

Your local government has just awarded a contract for digital imaging software to Super Secret Software, Inc., after considering several proposals submitted in response to your request for proposals. Sour Grapes Software, LLC, one of the vendors who submitted a proposal but was not awarded the contract, calls to ask you for a copy of Super Secret Software’s proposal. When you pull Super Secret Software’s proposal from your file, you see that every page of the proposal is stamped “CONFIDENTIAL.” What do you do?

Your local government has just awarded a contract for digital imaging software to Super Secret Software, Inc., after considering several proposals submitted in response to your request for proposals. Sour Grapes Software, LLC, one of the vendors who submitted a proposal but was not awarded the contract, calls to ask you for a copy of Super Secret Software’s proposal. When you pull Super Secret Software’s proposal from your file, you see that every page of the proposal is stamped “CONFIDENTIAL.” What do you do?

In my last post I defined metadata and summarized the three cases (in other states) that have addressed whether, and to what extent, metadata is a public record. I concluded that post by asking what we might glean from these cases to determine how North Carolina’s public records laws apply to metadata. The simple answer to that question is “not much.” Those cases involved interpretations of different public records laws and each addressed different types of metadata.

In my last post I defined metadata and summarized the three cases (in other states) that have addressed whether, and to what extent, metadata is a public record. I concluded that post by asking what we might glean from these cases to determine how North Carolina’s public records laws apply to metadata. The simple answer to that question is “not much.” Those cases involved interpretations of different public records laws and each addressed different types of metadata.

With taxpayers across the state still suffering financially, local governments may be forced to rely on foreclosures more than ever to generate vital property tax revenue.  Here are five persistent myths about tax foreclosures that deserve debunking.

With taxpayers across the state still suffering financially, local governments may be forced to rely on foreclosures more than ever to generate vital property tax revenue.  Here are five persistent myths about tax foreclosures that deserve debunking.