It really isn't all that complicated.

A special panel charged with reviewing the state's e-mail retention rules recommended that an archive system be created for the hundreds of thousands of e-mails sent each day by state employees.

But panel members stopped short of requiring a change in a policy that allows workers to decide whether an e-mail is a public record.

Gov. Mike Easley created the panel following allegations his press office ordered the systematic deletion of government e-mails. State law requires the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources to set guidelines on when e-mails must be kept.

Several media outlets filed suit against Easley last month, arguing that the existing Cultural Resources guidelines are unlawful because they let a state employee delete a public record when the worker determines the message has short-term or no value to the sender or receiver.

A pair of newspaper editors testified to the panel that all e-mails related to carrying out government business by public employees be archived for at least five years, and at least 10 years for elected officials.

Leave it to a state committee to take a pretty clear-cut rule and somehow send it down a convoluted maze of "what-ifs" and "on-the-other-hands." North Carolina's public records law defines e-mails sent and received by state employees as public records if they contain information related to the transaction of public business.

When it comes to questions about public records and open government policies, the answer is generally pretty darn simple – the public's interest is best served when the state government errs on the side of openness, transparency and inherent accountability.