In concert with Sunshine Week, San Diego CityBeat has collaborated with a local organization to launch Open San Diego Flashlight, an online bookmark collection which makes government records and public databases more accessible.

The project is being spearheaded by CityBeat reporter Dave Maass, who led similar efforts in Tucson, Ariz. and Santa Fe, N.M.

“With this new project for San Diego, the starting point is 248 links and growing every day,” Maass writes. “Flashlight has the links categorized so that you can conveniently click a button to zip right to the relevant links, whether that’s Census data, court records, lobbyist disclosures or parcel ownership.”

Maass says that the project’s goal is to empower members of the public to become watchdogs.

“The more eyes, the better,” he says. “The more fish swimming through the data, the better.”