Not only are they public they should also have record retention schedules tied to their e-mail archives as well.
It would be interesting to find out if the State Archives received the e-mail from the Ventura Administration for example or what happened to the e-mail of our former mayor. See the State of MN's Data Practices Act: http://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/stats/13/ More on record retention: http://www.mnhs.org/preserve/records/retentionsched.html In terms of open meetings, I can tell you that the school board in Winona tried to experiment with an incoming e-mail address for the public to send one e-mail to all members. The e-mails were archived publicly and initially members were going to reply to the group so they would have the benefit of seeing each others responses. The lawyers got involved and said ... hmmmm could this group communication violate the open meeting law??? The lack of a solid no closed that project down. Particularly with a publicly accessible web archive, I see no reason to use fear of the open meeting laws to close off communication among citizens and their elected officials. Looking into my crystal ball, I predict that in ten years all e-mail that is legally public to or from an elected official in Minneapolis related to their official duties with not just remain legally public, it will also be publicly accessible via the web for all to see just like the value of your home on the county's web site. In general, the media and citizens don't exercise their access rights and the culture within government accepts our proprietary human nature and allows us to forget the miracle we call democracy. So once in awhile a scandal or a breakdown in trust forces those in power to reform themselves (only to a point) and create new accountability measures. With the Internet, the potential of easy accountability without scandal has arisen, but no one in power has said, turn on the switch that gives all citizens anytime, anywhere access to how many computers the city bought today or what that new public employee got for a salary. The main question is that of building citizen trust, do those in power want to aggressively use the tools available to them to break through the barnacles and build automatic accountability and e-disclosure into everyday government at its deepest level? Our leaders today, could say, yes we live the spirit of the American revolution and be proactive in meeting their generation's democratic obligations or they could accept the stats quo and wait for scandals or anti-incumbent electoral overthrows to foist such changes from the outside. Steven Clift Carag Resident P.S. Take a look at Yalova, Turkey. They claim to put real-time government spending and bank account information online. On this page you can see the wealth declarations of their top officials: http://www.yalova-bld.gov.tr/?Belediye=mal_beyanlari One of them drive an 87 Mercedes. :-) According to Yalova's Dec. 2003 presentation, they provide/plan to provide access to: Council decisions Immediate flow of incomes Daily flow of expenditures Municipal Tenders Citizen applications and document follow-up Wealth Declaration - Increase/decrease of income and wealth of top officials Steven Clift - http://publicus.net - Reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Join DoWire: http://e-democracy.org/do Speaking requests: http://publicus.net/speaker.html Watch my BBC World interview: http://publicus.net/media.html > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Behalf Of JOHN AND TAMMY GASPARDO > Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 8:50 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: RE: [Mpls] Open Meetings > > > Jason, > E-mails from Gov't institutions are public domain. If you want a > copy of an > officials email record you can request them. > > > >From: Jason C Stone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >Subject: [Mpls] Open Meetings > >Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 11:39:48 -0800 (PST) > > > > > >It's my understanding that public officials can currently skirt > the intent > >of Open Meeting laws by > >using e-mail. Does anyone have further information on this? > > > >Regards, > >Jason Stone > >Diamond Lake > > > >__________________________________ > >Do you Yahoo!? > >Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail. > >http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools > >REMINDERS: > >1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at > >[EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. > >2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. > > > >For state and national discussions see: > http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html > >For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract > >________________________________ > > > >Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn > E-Democracy > >Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > >Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls > > _________________________________________________________________ > Dream of owning a home? Find out how in the First-time Home > Buying Guide. > http://special.msn.com/home/firsthome.armx > > REMINDERS: > 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager > at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. > 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. > > For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
