Transparency. Open communication. That’s what we all want from our government. But how can we keep track of the communication between our elected officials when there is no record?
I went to make a FOIA freedom of information act request of public records in Alameda and was dumbstruck why they do not retain email correspondence of elected public officials or public employees.
Back in June 2001, the City of Alameda enacted a policy of deleting emails after 30 days. In California, the generally accepted standard is to keep any form of correspondence amongst California governing bodies for at least two years.
The California Government code says that any government record must be retained for a minimum of two years. While this regulation does not explicitly state that public emails should be retained for that amount of time, it can be interpreted through the Code.
The conundrum here is defining correspondence. Some officials in Monterey deem emails to be non-correspondent and therefore subject to deletion after a period of 30 days. Does that mean only letters that come from the post office are considered “correspondence”? Who writes letters anymore? This is not the Pony Express era.
While every email is not correspondence, our City should err on the safe side and keep public emails. These emails could be considered relevant records of government activities to the public and they should be publicly available to us.
Our laws should be updated to reflect current patterns in how government bodies work. It’s our public right to access every record and some of our City officials are keeping that away from us. Why are they deleting these emails? Where’s the transparency?
I believe the Alameda Sunshine Task Force is still in action. We need them to look into this activity and provide further clarification or propose new legislation to define email correspondence
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The two-year minimum records retention law applicable to cities is not confined to correspondence. It applies to all records. Government Code Section 34090 states:
ReplyDelete"Unless otherwise provided by law, with the approval of the legislative body by resolution and the written consent of the city attorney the head of a city department may destroy any city record, document, instrument, book or paper, under his charge, without making a copy thereof, after the same is no longer required.
This section does not authorize the destruction of:
(a) Records affecting the title to real property or liens thereon.
(b) Court records.
(c) Records required to be kept by statute.
(d) Records less than two years old.
(e) The minutes, ordinances, or resolutions of the legislative body or of a city board or commission..."
Most people at my office communicate by email much of the time. Business email is a form of correspondence and part of a record that should be kept. If the City of Alameda treats email any differently, they're definitely taking advantage of a loophole in the state government code. If they need to cover their tracks, it's done.
ReplyDeleteSeems Like Gov. Code Sec. 34090 provides a legal procedure by which records may be destroyed. Government Code Section 34090 states:
ReplyDelete"Unless otherwise provided by law, with the approval of the legislative body by resolution and the written consent of the city attorney the head of a city department may destroy any city record, document, instrument, . . .. "
So if a procedure is properly enacted for destruction, isn't it legal under this section?
There is no loophole and the legal procedure referenced in the statute describes how documents may be destroyed after the required preservation time has passed, if it has. Otherwise, any city could simply legislate that documents can be destroyed after a short span of time that they choose, which would obviously circumvent what state law requires. Two years is the bare minimum for correspondence; in some cases it is three years. Many other types of records must be saved for several years and still others preserved for perpetuity. Alameda's excuses about inadequate server space and that emails are mere "drafts" are lame excuses. So much for the transparency that our city leaders talk about but don't put into practice.
ReplyDelete