Jul. 5--If you're a citizen with a beef about, for example, the way your local government is dealing with a zoning issue, you might want to confront it.

You might want to demand the records involved in the case, or insist that the meetings to consider them should be open -- no matter how uncomfortable that might be for the elected body. It is in the DNA of many elected officials to try to take difficult decisions behind closed doors.

If you are turned back, you or your organization might go to court to force government to make the public's business public. If you win, no matter how specious the defense by the government folks, you may still be out thousands of dollars in legal fees.

A bill pending in the State House would rectify that situation.

It also would set up an "open government mediation unit" in the state attorney general's office to review records request denials and either advise on the law or mediate a solution. Such units have worked in other states, avoiding the cost of litigation for both parties and providing a course to educate local official who may have erred out of ignorance of the law, not malevolent intent.

The bill would make it easier for citizens or media outlets contesting opposition to opening public records to recover attorney's fees if a court rules in favor of openness. Now, government units have little incentive to accede to legitimate requests -- resisting may not cost much to the government unit but may take a substantial financial toll on the media or citizen plaintiff.

That's backward. North Carolina needs House Bill 1134, which would significantly strengthen our open records laws.

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