Texts and emails sent by public employees on their personal devices or accounts are a matter of public record if they deal with official business, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a unanimous decision hailed by open-government advocates.The City of Encinitas has a long history of hiding public documents from the public.
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Public officials can't use private e-mail to hide public business from public
Says the California Supreme Court:
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A fish rots from the head first. The Encinitas city council is the head and they have and always will be rotten.
ReplyDeleteNo government is better than bad government.
Maybe these government employees will stay off Facebook while on our dime.
ReplyDeleteThey make Cal Trans look energetic!
DeleteBarth and Shaffer texts would be nice for the public at large to see.
ReplyDeleteGet them out of Encinitas politics for real.
Somebody needs to inform Vice President Pence.
ReplyDeleteI'm grateful for this ruling; I already thought this to be true, but a great many public officials didn't agree, including the former elected City Attorney for San Diego.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it's still a challenge to obtain these kinds of private communications. If someone puts in a public records act request, the request, here, goes to the City Clerk's office. The Clerk doesn't compile or keep track of private e-mails, so this would still basically be on the "honor system."
Good luck with honor at City Hall.
DeleteIt's excellent that the ruling from the California Supreme Court is unanimous.
ReplyDeletePublic officials conducting public business on private accounts should also preserve those specific e-mails for a reasonable time period. It would seem too easy, and too tempting to some, to subvert the new Supreme Court Order, by simply deleting relevant e-mails.