There’s good news and threatening news out of the bill hopper in Austin for yesterday’s kickoff of Sunshine Week, the national observance of the public’s right to know what goes on within government.

On the upside, state lawmakers are finding new ways to provide a view into the inner workings of government. But then there are some insidious ideas that would do the reverse.

The Good: The beauty of accessible online databases has been discovered by multiple lawmakers. One wants the state comptroller’s website to keep a searchable database detailing the taxes collected and debt incurred by every taxing district. The bill would create a taxpayer-friendly portal. Another bill would require the comptroller’s website to include a searchable function on the purposes of grants awarded by the state.

Many government agencies now voluntarily keep online checkbooks showing the purpose and recipient of each check. One bill would make them mandatory for school districts; a similar one would impose the rule on districts of 50,000-plus population.

A bill is in play requiring school districts and cities of at least 50,000 to webcast meetings and archive the recordings; another puts the same requirement on university system boards.

The Bad: Some stinkers would shield the identity and activities of police officers when it might not be in the public’s interest.

One bill would blow a big hole in the Public Information Act. It would allow a police agency to withhold, barring a court order, “records of telephone calls, text messages, emails or other electronic communications to which a peace officer is a party.”

The very point of the act is to make sure the public has a clear view of how public officials carry out their duties. This overbroad bill mocks that intent.

The Ugly: One fundamental in defending transparency is that you don’t leave it to government to tell government’s story. The pitfalls are as obvious as the fox’s mayhem in the henhouse.

And so it’s obvious why defenders of transparency are digging in against repeat efforts in the Legislature to sweep aside provisions in law requiring local governments to put certain public notices in newspapers, from bid solicitations to meetings on tax rates.

Make no mistake: The effort is the handiwork of government lobbyists. This session, one offending bill would let a government agency satisfy the notice requirement by posting information on its own website. That ostensibly would reap savings in the cost of notices paid by taxpayers.

The reality is that local governments spend a tiny fraction of their budgets on legal notices. And that money is a smart investment in an independent, archived, permanent source of government information.

To bury that several clicks beneath a city hall’s or school district’s home page would be putting it in a convenient place for insiders alone.

If a school district or city wants to advertise for bids, the custodian of that notice needs to be an independent third party between government and potential vendor. Notice of a land-use hearing or the sale of property should not be controlled by the agency deciding the outcome. That invites corruption.

Of course, newspapers have a financial interest in the status quo, but that jibes with this industry’s watchdog role. Every corner of a newspaper — from front-page exposés to small-print public notices — might reflect the taxpayer’s business on a given day.

That business should be displayed where the maximum number of citizens can see it.