March 15-21, 2015, marks the 10th anniversary of the nationally commemorated Sunshine Week in which open government proponents throughout our nation point with pride at transparency breakthroughs, but are equally alarmed about setbacks to the people’s right to know what their government is up to.A review by the Kansas Sunshine Coalition for Open Government shows the Kansas experience over the past 10 years is no different. While sunshine victories can be proclaimed in some areas of our state government—the legislative enactment of a media shield law, for example, there have been serious setbacks, including the expansion of exceptions to the state’s Open Records Act from 10 or so initially to now 57 and counting. Meanwhile, the cost of gaining access to these “open government” records has mushroomed to the point that pressing access in many instances simply isn’t worth the effort to the citizenry.Kansas media representatives who track open government legislation could describe their job as “whack-a-mole” because, as Gilda Radner was wont to say, “There’s always somethin’”!