09-26-2012 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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t, SARATOGA CITY COUNCIL MEETING DATE: July 1, 2009 AGENDA ITEM:. DEPARTMENT: City Attorney CITY MANAGER: Dave Anderson PREPARED BY: Richard Taylor DIRECTOR: Richard Taylor SUBJECT: City Council and Commissions' Electronic Communications Policy RECOMMENDED ACTION: Discuss the draft City Council and Commissions' Electronic Communications Policy and provide direction to staff. REPORT SUMMARY: City communications increasingly occur through electronic means. Over the years the City has followed various formal and informal procedures for effective use of electronic communications. The attached draft policy seeks to collect and coordinate those procedures into a single policy document for use by the City Council and City Commissions. While the primary objective of the draft policy is to promote effective use of electronic communications in conducting City business, an important secondary purpose is to create a system that allows compliance with state and federal laws governing electronic communications. Those laws include the Records Retention Act, the Public Records Act, the Brown Act, and state and federal rules of evidence. The attached policy facilitates compliance with those laws by the City, Coixncit members, and Commissioners. Under the policy, the City would issue e-mail addresses to all Commissioners and Council members (currently only the Council and Planning Commission have e•mail.addresses). These addresses would be used for all City business. Personal business via City e -mail would be prohibited. The policy includes straightforward guidelines for use of City e -mail and the Internet in a manner that does not violate the Brown Act or other laws (e.g., no policy discussions among Council members or Commissioners via e- mait.or intemetforums). The policy is drafted in a manner that applies to any type of electronic communication account issued by the City. If the City develops tools other than e-mail (e.g., instant messaging) the policy would apply to use of those tools as well. The policy also formalizes existing procedures for responding to e-mails from the public addressed to the Council or a Commission as a whole and for responding to e-mails to less than a quorum. It also establishes as formal policy for all Commissions the existing practice for Council and Planning Commission of posting all agendas and minutes on the City website. Finally, the policy addresses two relatively new matters. The first concerns use of e-mail during Council or Commission meetings. With increasing use of laptops for notes and paperless agendas there is a potential for use of e-mail during the meeting. To assure the public that their decision - makers are considering only the public information presented at the meeting the policy makes clear that e-mail may not be used by a.decision -maker during a meeting. The second new matters concerns e-mail retention. Historically the City has printed all substantive e-mail for archival purposes. The City now has the capacity to electronically archive e-mails without printing. This is reflected in the policy. Page I of 2 23