Open Access to Commission's E-mail Stays

Public access to commissioners e-mails will stay open despite the city attorney's recent attempt to . 

City commissioners voted 4-1 to keep the same basic system in place for access to its e-mails. Julie Scales voted against it.

Attorney Tom Trask shut down access to public e-mail records more than a month ago, citing a privacy violation of Florida’s open government Sunshine Laws. Trask said the city was not filtering its e-mails for sensitive, potentially identifiable information including social security numbers, addresses of emergency personnel and medical information before making them available to the public.

Until a month and a half ago, all e-mails sent or received by commissioners and the city manager were available for review on a designated computer in the city clerk’s office.

For about 10 years, the e-mails were printed, reviewed and organized into individual, publicly accessible folders for each commissioner in the clerk's office.

All this is done to comply with state Sunshine Laws, which mandate that "all state, county, and municipal records are open for personal inspection and copying by any person. Providing access to public records is a duty of each agency."

The city adopted a more efficient search process about two years ago.

“They printed everything. A hard copy of every e-mail went right in a file,” Commissioner Julie Ward Bujalski said. If an e-mail was copied to the group of commissioners, “They would print the e-mail six times and put it in six different folders.”

From a cost, waste and time management perspective, Bujalski said, “That’s ridiculous.”

Trask, who replaced 37-year city attorney in April, offered solutions that he and city representatives brainstormed in a July 20 memo to commissioners:

First, he said he advised his law firm and others to refrain from sending documents with sensitive information to commissioners via e-mail. This was something his predecessor didn’t do.

“John (Hubbard) really is not computer literate,” Trask said, explaining that Hubbard preferred hard copies, whereas he opts to communicate electronically.

“John was just ahead of his time — on this issue,” Mayor Dave Eggers quipped.

Second, Trask suggested that the city clerk, or another trained employee, be responsible for screening e-mails for sensitive information, before they are made public, through a process of printing and filing hard copies of e-mails — essentially reverting to the city’s former, more time-consuming method.

Commissioner Julie Scales offered the only dissenting vote.

“We’re not talking here about denying access to documents,” she said.

To fulfill recent public records requests, City Clerk Denise Schlegel said she and another employee spent three hours each sifting through a copier box full of printed e-mails. Schlegel said she took the documents home.

“That’s not an appropriate use of time,” Commissioner Dave Carson said.

Trask said that from Schlegel's stack, he found five documents with sensitive information exempt from public record — three of which came from his firm. He said it took him an additional 15 minutes.

“It’s time consuming, but it’s the law,” Trask said.

“I know lawyers look at the law as black and white, but there is a practical application to that law,” Bujalski countered. “In the spirit of that (Sunshine) — and the cost benefit of that (public access computer) — the practical application of the law we are trying to achieve outweighs … two people [taking a combined] six hours and 15 minutes [to prevent] something that has never happened in the past 15 years. … I think people sitting out there would say that’s a waste of public money.”

Bujalski suggested this approach. Staff should be trained to identify and handle information exempt from public record law. And a statement should be included at the bottom of all city e-mails reminding users that everything written and sent in city e-mails is subject to public access.

"You’re reading it anyway," she said. "You can kind of guess if it’s confidential."

Commissioners voted to reinstate the public access computer in 30 days, assuming employees are trained on proper use of e-mail and Sunshine exemptions. Until then, information in city e-mails must be obtained through a public records request.

*Updated 10:54 a.m., July 25, 2011.