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Gov. Mike Easley said today that he did not violate public records law when he threw away a letter to him from Carmen Hooker Odom, former head of the state Department of Health and Human Services.

"Carmen sent me a handwritten personal note," he said. "It didn't have anything to do with public policy. It's not a public record, not something that I'm required to log and maintain. I read it and disposed of it."

Easley made his comments at a news conference devoted largely to the drought. In a 180-degree turn from the contentious news conference had held a week ago on mental health, Easley took follow up questions, responded to all questions and didn't try to run away, reports Lynn Bonner.

His administration has been under scrutiny for how it has responded to the failures of the state mental health system. Hooker Odom was in charge when problems related to a 2001 mental health reform plan mounted. She resigned her state job last year and in recent months has declined to be interviewed.

Easley said in an interview Sunday that Hooker Odom told him in her note why she didn't want to talk. But Easley said Tuesday her note did not "discuss anything of public consequence."

"It was never intended to be public," Easley said.

John Bussian, a lawyer for the N.C. Press Association, said Hooker Odom's note was indisputably a public record.

"The legal status does not turn on whether somebody intended it to be public," he said. "If it did, then anybody could use that as a license to steal from the public what it is entitled to know."

The state treasurer’s office is no longer making public the pensions of state retirees, citing a prohibition in a 2007 law that had been originally intended to give the public more access to the pay and perks of public officials.

Senate Bill 1546 was initially intended to make bonuses, incentives and other compensation public, reports Dan Kane.

State Sen. David Hoyle, a Gaston County Democrat, filed the legislation after the Carolinas Healthcare System denied that information to The Charlotte Observer. But as the bill moved its way through the Senate, changes were made to limit other information that had previously been public, including pensions.

It’s unclear who added the provision that now prevents the treasurer from disclosing how much taxpayers are paying for a state employee’s pension.

Sara Lang, a spokeswoman for State Treasurer Richard Moore, said no one there requested the change.

“We didn’t ask for this,” she said. “This is the legislation that was passed, and then the Attorney General’s office interpreted it for us, and we’re following the law.”

Read more after the jump.