California law requires cities to keep emails for a minimum of two years, but half of the cities in San Diego County delete most of their emails from city servers in much less time — in some cases, within a few weeks.
A recent survey by Voice of San Diego showed that Encinitas and Poway have the shortest retention policy, deleting emails after 30 days. Del Mar deletes theirs after 60 days. Carlsbad, Escondido and Oceanside wait until the 90-day marker, while Solana Beach waits for 100 days, Santee for 180 days and Coronado for one year.
In justifying these policies, city officials argue that the law isn’t as clear on email retention as some would believe and they delete emails they view as non-public records to save taxpayer money. In the process, they’ve designated themselves the arbiters of what’s public and not public — a practice that troubles some of California’s leading open government advocates.
“It goes against what state law requires of them,” said Kelly Aviles, an attorney and vice president of transparency group Californians Aware, who reviewed Voice’s findings.
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Transparency and Trust
Voice of San Diego:
Yeah, honest people don’t even think about stuff like how soon can data be deleted.
ReplyDeleteWhat was Hillary's email retention requirement?
ReplyDeleteEncinitas city workers are all about burying the evidence.
ReplyDeleteNot every email is considered a record. Records have a clear legal definition, and laws on retention periods.
ReplyDeleteIf I write an email to a colleague letting them know there’s cookies in the break room, it’s not a record, and can be deleted immediately.
We are not talking about cookies though.
DeleteThe current direction at City Hall is still the same as the past ten years. The culture promoted and ingrained at the City is City Hall leads the citizens and residents should understand their concerns are of little matter to the City. Citizens should shut up and let staff tell them what is good for them and their neighborhood. Got it?!!
ReplyDeleteGood. Now go about your stupid life and quit calling City Hall. And please don't talk about the pension issue. Its none of your business!! We will let you know when we want you to attend a meeting to show we really listen, OK?
Here is the deal with pensions. If we don’t pay for them they will raise our property taxes to the point where everyone has to have a granny flat. Or they simply keep building unaffordable housing while the HEU numbers stays the same. Either way, they are getting that pension and you are paying for it. You don’t own your home unless you pay a yearly tax to cover pensions. This democrat is voting republican the next couple election cycles to hopefully reign in the foxes in the hen house.
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