It was a good first step this week when the Ketchum City Council directed the city attorney to draft a policy for e-mail sent or received by elected and appointed officials, and city employees.
The council wants the city to comply with Idaho law and recent Idaho Supreme Court decisions in which the court ruled that e-mails are public documents.
The high court unanimously upheld a lower court ruling that 889 e-mails between Kootenai County Prosecutor Bill Douglas and a former employee must be handed over to The Spokesman-Review newspaper.
The prosecutor had tried to conceal the e-mails as personal and private.
As part of the new policy, the city has purchased laptop computers for each member of the City Council.
Council members have been instructed to use the computers exclusively for official e-mail, with every e-mail to be placed on the city's central computer system.
The city also plans to train elected and appointed officials, as well as employees, on how to send and receive official e-mail so that copies will be available to the public when requested.
This will accomplish three things.
It will save the public officials a lot of time and aggravation when they are called upon to produce public documents. They won't have to sort personal from private e-mails in files that can accumulate thousands of communications.
Second, it will ensure that the e-mails are available to the public when requested under the Idaho Open Records law.
Third, it will give the city an easy way to make the e-mail messages received by those in government part of the public record on various issues that may come before the council.
Every Idaho city should follow Ketchum's lead and ensure that all electronic public documents are archived and easily available to the public.
Taking the wraps off e-mail has the potential to produce greater public understanding of important issues. It will force back-door lobbyists into the open—or back into their dark corners. And, it will help keep public officials from succumbing to the always present temptation to operate behind closed doors.
