Sweeping away e-mails is hardly necessary
Todd McGreevy, editor of River Cities Reader, has done yeoman service to the community by keeping an eye on local government entities. He and others exposed the horrendous vote for a “sustainability” plan that has all the trappings of Agenda 21. They have also exposed the diligence and transparency, or rather lack thereof, of county government on various budget proceedings.
This coming Thursday the Board of Supervisors will consider what is to champions of open government an unfathomable proposal. For sound reasons McGreevy calls for tabling a measure to destroy county e-mails. We support his efforts. McGreevy’s letter to the Board of Supervisors is posted here in its entirety with permission. For ease of forwarding and keeping aware of developments, a link to his letter is available here at River Cities Reader.
E-mail Destruction Needs More Discussion: An Open Letter to the Scott County Board of Supervisors
By Todd McGreevy, Wednesday, 18 December 2013
The October 11 communication that Assistant County Administrator Mary Thee sent out to you and county staff speaks volumes about why you should table a vote on December 19 to implement a policy that destroys, after three years, any e-mails sent and received by county employees.
What is readily apparent is that the storage of said information is not the issue. It is the possibility of staff having to provide those e-mails to respond to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests or litigation.
Thee states this in her second bullet point: “There is a growing trend in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and litigation to request e-mail correspondence on particular topics.”
If you enact this new policy (page 11 of this document), you will be telling the taxpayers of Scott County that you are against government transparency – that you don’t want the people to have access to what its government is, and has been, up to.
You will effectively be authorizing the needless destruction of evidence. The e-mails in question are a part of the record of the conduct of the government body you are responsible for.
“Particular topics”? Which particular topics, Ms. Thee? If this board can be swayed into enacting such a policy because the public is seeking information on “particular topics,” what’s next?
In the future, if some particular topic, other than the ones Thee does not articulate, becomes troublesome to staff, will staff then recommend that all e-mails older than 30 days be destroyed?
It’s fortunate for the taxpayers of Scott County that Thee actually documented the motivations behind the staff’s efforts to destroy the record of its own actions. While the phrase “E-mail Retention” is her subject line, the true nature of this policy change is e-mail destruction.
The notion that the cost of data storage is a problem is a red herring. Data storage is very inexpensive, and costs per unit of storage continue to decline year after year. Regardless, Thee offers no evidence of this statement or any cost/benefit analysis whatsoever to support this reason for destroying older e-mails.
Taxpayers are required to keep records for up to seven years by taxing authorities. The Scott Emergency Communications Center building has equipment that is storing massive amounts of video and audio data on citizens and their activities. But county government just can’t afford to keep any e-mails older than three years old?
Well, if you read Thee’s memo closely, county government can afford to keep e-mails for more than three years – if it choose to: “Please do store e-mail that needs to be maintained beyond three years electronically in one of two methods … .”
So, if it approves this new policy, the Scott County Board of Supervisors will be enabling a double set of books, so to speak. The public could request a copy of a communication older than three years old, but it would never actually know whether that communication was stored in one of the ways Thee recommends.
Who decides what should be stored and not stored? And what are the criteria?
While staff may have a communication more than three years old, it can claim it was destroyed as part of this policy you are being asked to approve on December 19.
Please table this vote, and require staff to provide answers to questions such as these:
• What is the cost of storing data older than three years old? How is that being measured?
• What are the particular topics of FOIA requests and litigation that Thee references in her memo that are part of the rationale for this e-mail destruction?
• Is it the Board of Supervisors’ role/duty/place to thwart the public’s access to the record, behavior, and communications of government?
Lastly, I offer at no charge or cost to the county or the taxpayers the service of storing the e-mail data that Thee would have you destroy. I am certain that additional members of the local media would be interested in a collaboration to ensure that such information is not destroyed and is available to the public.
Please table this policy change vote at your December 19 meeting and seriously reconsider the documented motivations behind an effort to make county government less accessible to the public.
Transparency for me but not for THEE?
Thank god somebody is finally as interested and concerned as myself about the out of control spending on “E-Mail storage!” Surely they can rub those couple of Nickels together that would be saved and use them for greater good!