Carrboro's new Official Correspondence e-mail archive shows how easy it is to make the public's business actually available to the public. If you do it as Mayor Chilton did - with a Google Group - it's even free. Chapel Hill News editor Mark Schultz says the new system serves the community better than paper archives used by other governments, and it makes reporters' job easier which leads to better coverage in the papers. It's also very easy for officials to use as they just forward or CC e-mails to get them into the archive.
What's keeping Chapel Hill, Hillsborough, and Orange County from following suit? Sometimes I wonder if they wouldn't prefer that we just let them govern in peace instead of sticking our noses into the public business all the time.
