Blogger exhibits healthy cynicism and other Sunshine Week links

The Sonoran Alliance, a blog that covers Arizona politics, notes that Arizona Attorney General Goddard took advantage of Sunshine Week to share his commitment to open government.

The Sonoran Alliance suggests “Now would be a good time to submit a public records request to the Attorney General’s Office and find out how much Goddard has spent on publications promoting himself.”

An Ohio newspaper on the stories that wouldn’t exist but for open records.

The Post-Gazette in Pennsylvania commemorates Sunshine Week with a great big old lawsuit against West Virginia University.

Here’s a Sunshine Week thought to ponder: “It will be interesting to discuss whether it is standard practice for a public official to divest all file materials shortly after completing (the investigation of) a controversial killing involving 12 or more law enforcement agencies.” Count me in!

Gov. Jim Doyle doing better than last year at filling open records requests. This year, about 50% of requestors got their records. Last year, it was 16%.

1,362 news articles on “open records” in the last 24 hours. That’s how you know its Sunshine Week.