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City of Austin

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Council reforming e-mail policies

Posted Friday, April 15, 2011 5:23pm
Austin City Council Adopts Policy to Improve
Compliance With Texas Public Information Act

Policy Does Not Cover All City Employees
or All City Board and Commission Members

by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2011

The Austin City Council voted 7-0 on April 7 to institute an e-mail policy that establishes city accounts as the primary means of communicating about city business. If circumstances require communicating about city business on a non-city account, that communication is to be promptly forwarded to a city account.

When complied with, local government records created or received on personal communications devices or personal accounts will be collected, assembled, and maintained to be available upon request under the Texas Public Information Act. Release of these communications, like any other public record, will be subject to the exceptions provided for in the Act.

The policy would also bring the city’s deficient procedures of the past into compliance with laws that have been on the books for decades, including the Local Government Records Act and the city’s own Local Government Records Control Schedules (see report of April 6, 2011).

This policy would also satisfy some of the concerns laid out in The Austin Bulldog v. Mayor Lee Leffingwell et al lawsuit filed March 1, as well as The Austin Bulldog’s civil complaint filed March 23 with County Attorney David Escamilla.

As originally written, the Draft Resolution would have applied the policy to all city officials and employees.

The Adopted Resolution, however, applies the policy only to the mayor, city council members and the city employees directly appointed by the city council: the city manager, city clerk, city auditor, chief judge of the municipal court, and municipal court clerk. The policy applies to all communications occurring immediately after the adoption of the resolution.

Karen KennardThe council backed off the original draft resolution after a discussion that lasted nearly an hour and a half involving the council members, City Attorney Karen Kennard, and attorney James E. “Jim” Cousar of Thompson & Knight LLP.

Lee LeffingwellMayor Lee Leffingwell asked Kennard if the council could legally apply this policy to employees over which the council has no direct supervisory authority.

Kennard answered: “The City Council under the (City) Charter does not have the authority to apply personnel policies to city employees. That authority is given exclusively to the city manager. And so in looking at the policy we would have to have some language that recognizes that the charter gives that exclusive authority to the city manager and not the council.”

The mayor said the city manager also could set a policy that applied to the employees in council offices—implying that council members cannot order employees in their council offices to comply with the new policy.

“That’s correct,” Kennard said. “Including the council aides, under our charter, those employees are subject to the exclusive direction of the city manager.”

That statement is at odds with the way that council offices actually function. In practice, council members hire the people who work in their offices, said former City Council Member Beverly Griffith, who served on the council from 1996 to 2002. Council staff members work under the day-to-day supervision of the council members and their performance ratings are completed by the council members, Griffith said. Council aides interviewed said these procedures are still in effect.

Toward the end of the discussion Council Member Bill Spelman revised the draft resolution to conform to Kennard’s legal advice.

The adopted resolution directs City Manager Marc Ott to “develop a policy regarding the conduct of city business on personal communication devices by all other city employees and report progress to the council within 30 days.”

A resolution is an expression of the City Council’s position, not an ordinance. The adopted resolution provides no means of enforcement and no penalty for violating the policy it establishes.

City council can’t establish policies?

 

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City, council members answer lawsuit

Posted Monday, April 11, 2011 1:22pm
City of Austin and Council Members File
Answer to The Austin Bulldog’s Lawsuit

Answer Challenges Standing and Claims
Requests for Open Records Fulfilled, Mostly

by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2011

Separate answers were filed this morning for the City of Austin, Mayor Lee Leffingwell and each council member in response to The Austin Bulldog v. Mayor Lee Leffingwell et al.

The Austin Bulldog filed the lawsuit in state district court March 1 to sue the mayor and each council member in their official capacity, and the City of Austin, for failure to promptly and fully respond to The Austin Bulldog’s requests filed January 19 and January 27, 2011, under the Texas Public Information Act. (See March 2 report.)

Despite numerous searches, and multiple separate releases of e-mails and text messages by the mayor and council members, nearly four months have elapsed since the initial requests and the city has still not released all the records that existed on city servers—and concedes that fact in its answer to the lawsuit.

What legal action The Austin Bulldog takes in response to the defendants’ answers to the lawsuit will be determined after evaluating what the city means when it says it will “very shortly” furnish additional records responsive to The Austin Bulldog’s open records requests.

Pattern of hiding communications

Help Analyze Council E-mails

Posted Saturday April 9, 2011 5:09pm
Call for Public Help in Analyzing City Council
Members Private E-mails, Text Messages

Volunteers Needed to Review Correspondence
and Provide Feedback About Any Irregularities

by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2009

In response to open records requests, The Austin Bulldog has obtained hundreds of pages of e-mails and some text messages in which members of the Austin City Council communicated among themselves using personal devices or personal accounts.

Your help is needed in poring over these e-mails to create a better public understanding of these communications. It’s a work party and you’re invited. Read the messages and e-mail your findings to The Austin Bulldog at [email protected].

If you decide to jump in and help, here are some questions to keep in mind:

Why private?—Help figure out why the city’s business being discussed in these messages was not conducted using city accounts. Does it appear to be a matter of convenience or does it indicate a desire to evade public scrutiny?

Walking quorum?—A walking quorum exists when four or more council members discuss the same topic of public business among themselves. That could occur when one string of e-mails circulates on that topic among four or more members of the council. A walking quorum could exist when disconnected strings of e-mails in effect establish a quorum discussing the same topic. E-mails among fewer than a quorum may make reference to discussions with other council members that when taken together indicate establishment of a walking quorum.

City e-mail addresses?—Do any of these e-mails involve one or more city e-mail addresses? Point those out so we can research them further.

Controversial topic?—Are the council members discussing something controversial and if so, what seems to be the reason for using private e-mail accounts?

Ask for confidentiality?—Do any of these messages explicitly ask for or imply that the discussion should be kept secret?

To access 115 pages of Mayor Lee Leffingwell’s private e-mails released April 8 click here.

To access 14 pages of Mayor Pro Tem Mike Martinez’ private e-mails released April 8 click here.

To access nine pages of Cole’s private e-mail and Facebook message released March 31, click here.

To access 11 pages of Council Member Laura Morrison’s private e-mails released March 30 click here.

To access 33 pages of Morrison’s private text messages released April 8 click here.

To access 104 pages of Council Member Randi Shade’s private e-mails released April 8 click here.

Council Member Bill Spelman has not released any e-mails involving a private e-mail account. He released three e-mails involving his University of Texas account on March 29. To access those 10 pages, click here.

Background

City Council Records Retention Problems

Posted Wednesday April 6, 2011 9:03pm
City of Austin’s Records Retention Undermined
by Lack of Controls Over Deletion of E-mails

Missing Records Likely More
Important Than Gossipy Tidbits

Investigative Report by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2011

The Austin American-Statesman and some television reports had a field day serving up e-mail exchanges among the mayor and council members that reveal the proclivity of some officeholders to hold side discussions among themselves during council meetings in which they demeaned certain citizens and showed a lack of confidence in high-level employees, including the city manager, an assistant city manager and the fire chief.

This rush to dish the dirt out of the e-mails that have been released—in response to open records requests filed under the Texas Public Information Act, first by The Austin Bulldog and later the Statesman and other media—has been entertaining, in a sense, and has triggered profuse apologies from the offending officeholders. A heaping helping of humble pie has been served up and choked down.

What has not been reported is how these elected officials, and their staff members, may be failing to properly manage e-mails and other correspondence to make sure that local government records are collected, assembled, and maintained in accordance with the Local Government Records Act.

At present, the city permits every city official and employee to conduct public business by creating or receiving local government records via e-mail and to keep them secret by using personal e-mail accounts.

The city also permits every official and employee who uses a computer to choose—without review by anyone else—when to delete local government records in the form of e-mails created or received on the city’s computers. Once e-mails are deleted, the right of access to them through the Texas Public Information Act, Government Code Chapter 552, is soon permanently lost.

The city’s failure to comply with the Texas Public information Act and the Local Government Records Act was the basis for the lawsuit, The Austin Bulldog v. Mayor Lee Leffingwell, et al, as reported March 2. The city has until April 11 to file its initial reply to the pleadings.These shortcomings are also the basis for The Austin Bulldog's complaint filed with County Attorney David Escamilla,as reported March 23.

The city’s response to The Austin Bulldog’s open records requests for deleted e-mails indicate that some e-mails that should have been retained are being deleted.

Records retention basics