“Government officials increasingly are conducting the public’s business in the shadows. Journalists and citizens are routinely denied even the most basic public records: city budgets and bids, law enforcement reports, court records. Many times, officials and citizens don’t understand or know the law around public records. Other times, officials know the law but create artificial reasons or delay tactics to deny releasing records. And often, records are denied because citizen and journalist requests are sent to the wrong source or agency, are too broad or are technically difficult to fulfill. AZ Public Info is an innovative public service to help ease these issues. Assembled by the journalists at azcentral.com and made possible with funding from Arizona State University’s Knight-Cronkite Alumni Innovation Award, it is a site that:

• Creates a simple one-stop solution that links directly to public record custodians for state, county, law enforcement and school district public boards, bodies or agencies.
• Provides easy-to-use templates and forms that allow members of the public to send appropriate records requests directly to these bodies, citing current law to educate all involved.
• List common reasons that records may be rejected and offer the public strategies for overcoming these obstacles…”