Boston City Government Discovers Email Retention

An anonymous reader writes "The Boston Globe, covering a battle to unseat the 16-year incumbent mayor, has found out that the city has no email retention policy. A city official who receives hundreds of emails a day was found to have only 18 emails in his mailbox. The city has enabled journaling on its Exchange server in response. The Globe also notes that they had to curtail requests for emails under the Open Records law because for each mailbox, 'City officials estimated they would charge $5,000 for six months worth of email.'"

Re:No retention?

[laughingcoyote]

Yes, I know where I am, but if you'd RTFA:

According to the Massachusetts secretary of state, the state public records law requires municipal employees to save electronic correspondence for at least two years, even if the contents are of "no informational or evidential value." The only e-mails that can be deleted are those containing completely inconsequential information, such as spam or questions about lunch orders.

Why tagged "republicans"???

[Vinegar Joe]

Since 1930, every mayor of Boston has been a Democrat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mayors_of_Boston [wikipedia.org]

This is why term limits are needed

[Anonymous Coward]

The attitude of an entrenched incumbent like Menino is: I've been here long enough to know what works, the systems are working for me, and nobody important (e.g. governor, head of teacher's union) has raised this issue to me face to face, so there is no need to review or upgrade anything. He'll spend the city's money on stuff where he sees a direct political or personal payoff.

For example: a couple years ago he commissioned an architectural study for a brand new city hall on prime waterfront property, because the current building is often mocked for its idiosyncratic architecture. I'm sure he smiled every night as he thought of tourists from around the world looking up at the gleaming "Thomas M. Menino City Hall". Guess who would be picking up the tab. (The project is currently on hold because of the recession).

The advantages of incumbency are huge. The mayor controls the city's resources and can withhold them from the districts of city councilors who publicly oppose him; and of course, he can fire anyone who works for the city of Boston who creates problems for him. He's got his name prominently displayed on every development project in town ("Getting the job done... Thomas M. Menino, Mayor"). Thus, the arc of his tenure has been about consolidation of power and marginalization of potential opponents. Also, the newspaper business has declined for the past ten years or so coinciding with the rise of the Internet, so newspapers have fewer resources to spare on investigative journalism. Of course, all this is not unique to Boston, but applies to most any long-time incumbent mayor.