Mayor Adrian Fenty on Monday ditched his plan to trash most government e-mails older than six months after members of the D.C. Council raised objections.
Fenty, who carries three BlackBerries and does much of his work by e-mail, cited the cost of storing millions of seemingly unnecessary e-mails when he first issued his executive order in July. Under the policy, the Office of the Chief Technology Officer was to store all e-mail on D.C. government servers for six months before deleting them “automatically and permanently.”
The only exceptions were to be those e-mails connected to legal claims by or against the District, and those sought by an agency for a “compelling business or legal need.” The policy was slammed by government watchdogs and the media, and raised eyebrows among several council members.
“The Council of the District of Columbia has raised reasonable concerns about our e-mail retention policy, and after careful consideration I have decided to return to our previous policy of retaining all District government e-mails indefinitely,” Fenty said in a statement.
Council member Carol Schwartz is expected to introduce legislation today directing the mayor to develop a policy that protects all e-mails that may be historically relevant, material to litigation or tied to government operations.
She will introduce the bill, with the backing of 10 colleagues, despite the mayor’s change of heart.
“I’m afraid some very important records could be deleted,” Schwartz said.
Fenty’s executive order stated that all e-mail “will not be retained on any media or log.” Full backups were to be kept on tape for eight weeks, before those tapes were recycled.
Council member Phil Mendelson said last week the executive order “has to be repealed.”
