Selectmen emails and Right to Know

The Citizen        May 19th, 2008

By CUTTER MITCHELL
jmitchell@citizen.com

Selectman Gus Benavides has begun to question how Gilford stores its email and whether those methods follow the requirements of the state's Right to Know law.Benavides' main concern was the preservation of emails, which become public records when they have to do with town business otherwise not excluded by statute.According to RSA 91-A: 4 I, "every citizen during the regular or business hours of all such bodies or agencies, and on the regular business premises of such bodies or agencies, has the right to inspect all public records, including minutes of meetings of the bodies or agencies, and to make memorandums, abstracts, and photographic or photostatic copies of the records or minutes so inspected, except as otherwise prohibited by statute." Benavides pointed out that currently there is no backup to the town's emails. This means should any be lost, so would the public record of such a communication.He explained to his fellow board members that this material, "must be available to the public," in order for the town to be compliant with the state's Right-to-Know law. At this point, only the emails of the department managers are backed up and recorded under the town's current computer system. However Interim Town Administrator Debra Shackett did say with the installation of new computer servers, set to happen this year, all emails remaining at the end of the day will be recorded and backed up. This bit of information did not relieve the bulk of the concern, as Benavides pointed out the logging of emails would only happen to those remaining at the end of the day. This seems to overlook those emails that may be deleted during the business day, which would be lost as if "you crumpled up a piece of paper and threw it away," explained Shackett. She continued by saying the best way to make sure public record emails are not deleted by employees is to properly educate those employees about what they have to save and what is acceptable to "throw away" Shackett advised that the software needed to capture all the town's emails would cost an estimated $10,000, with the cost being the reason such a system is not already in place. There has been an occasion where public records in Gilford were lost. The Citizen recently reported on the destruction of meeting minutes through "an error in procedure" by Shackett. The minutes affected were the minutes, and by extent the public record, for the meeting where former Town Administrator Evans Juris was terminated. Just before bringing up this issue, the board heard from budget committee member and chairman of the Gilford Town Republican Committee Skip Murphy about a more open and transparent government through the Internet. Murphy was requesting that the town post much of its public information on the town website, with the bulk of the request focusing on the financial data from the town.
While the board did not take any immediate action, members did approve Benavides to explore how to make such a thing happen after he volunteered for the assignment. Selectman Chair Connie Grant advised Murphy that there is a lot the board wants to do this year and information sharing of this kind would have to come after other goals were achieved.

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