I did not see the piece done on the deletion of electronic files. My guess though is that the files that were deleted were from a constutent tracking system. Most Council offices have some sort of way of systematically tracking the phone calls that they get from constitutents. Usually it includes the person's name, address, phone number, the reasons that they called, and whatever resolution or actions taken on their issue. Trying to remember back several years ago, I believe that the City Attorney said that this information was not public information. That there were special legislative statutes which said that if you called your Council Member and complained that that information could not be made public. I believe (trying to remember back...help me anyone who remembers more on this) that this was done because people may be hesitent to contact their elected officials if they knew that their name could be made public and then suffer reprisals. (Say your neighbor has a barking dog and you call the CM to deal with it and then your neighbor requests your name and then takes retribution against you....) The question is whether or not it is ethical to break this non-public status of this information due to a change of elected officials. I would expect folks could debate both sides of that issue but this may be why the City Attorney has not done anything on this issue.
Barbara Lickness wrote: > Doesn't it stand to reason that a council member > should build institutional memory of the projects and > issues they deal with during their time in office? I > believe there is a big responsibility to do so. > > The documents not on a council members computer would > be documents they collected in the course of doing > their jobs and attending meetings or hearings. Things > like MCDA reports, zoning and planning reports, > inspections information, letters from people outside > city hall, files on properties. etc. Yes, most of this > could be rebuilt but the time and expense to do so > would be horrendous. How would you even know what to > rebuild? As to policy issues, Council Members typically do not keep huge files on issues. I think that current council offices only have four file cabinets each (they are big cabinets but definately not large enough to create "instutional memory" on the wide variety and numerous issues that come before the Council). Typically paperwork in council offices is redundent with what is kept by the City Clerk or by department staff which is why that isn't the location that "instituional memory" is kept. When a CM needs this information, they typically request it from the department that maintains it. Ask your current CM what their recycling bins look like.... And yes, there are a group of women who have been going to Acolpoco for several decades at the end of February. Some are or have been in the public eye and some not. No great conspiricy, just a group of friends who have been doing thing forever. Carol Becker Longfellow _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
