Deleted e-mails spark a furor
Mayor’s rivals want practice investigated
September 14, 2009
By: John M. Guilfoil
Two Boston city councilors and challengers to Mayor Thomas M. Menino called yesterday for an investigation after a Globe report revealed that at least one city official has been routinely deleting work e-mails – a practice that potentially violates state public records law.
City councilors Michael Flaherty and Sam Yoon, both candidates in the upcoming mayoral preliminary election, said they would ask Attorney General Martha Coakley and Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley to investigate the deletion of e-mails by officials in Menino’s administration.
Flaherty, in a statement, said the practice smacked of a “culture of dishonesty’’ in the Menino administration,’’ while Yoon issued a similar statement characterizing the controversy as “case in point’’ for term limits and greater checks on the power of the mayor of Boston.
The candidates’ reactions came after the Globe reported Sunday on the deletion by city officials of e-mails that the councilors say should be part of the public record. The Menino administration acknowledged that e-mails were being deleted after the Globe requested copies of those sent to and received by Michael J. Ki neavy, Menino’s Cabinet chief of policy and planning and one of the mayor’s closest advisers.
The request turned up just 18 e-mails Kineavy had sent or received between Oct. 1, 2008, and March 31 of this year. The extremely low result prompted city officials to question Kineavy about what happened to the rest of his e-mail. Kineavy told them that he deletes all his e-mail on a daily basis and does not allow his e-mail to be saved on city backup computers, according to officials.
“Actions by [Kineavy] and others in the mayor’s cabinet to delete public records are illegal and outrageous, and point to nothing less than a cover-up at the highest levels of the Menino administration,’’ Flaherty said.
Menino’s opponents said the practice of deleting e-mails runs contrary to the notion of open government.
“This is what happens when power goes unchecked and unopposed,’’ said Yoon. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.’’
Menino dismissed the furor as campaign politicking. “It’s election time, one week before the [preliminary] election, and I expect a lot coming out of my opponents in one week,’’ Menino said in an interview yesterday. “We need to focus on the issues that affect the citizens of Boston.’’
City attorney Bill Sinnott said the administration became aware of the e-mail issue several months ago. Sinnott said that all e-mails are supposed to be backed up in the city’s computer systems, but a glitch, which he said the city was fixing, allowed users to delete messages and then empty a “deleted items folder,’’ thus circumventing the nightly backup process.
Sinnott said he saw “no evidence of any willful or intentional attempt to delete e-mails of substantive or evidentiary value.’’
According to the Massachusetts secretary of state, the state public records law requires municipal employees to save most electronic correspondence for at least two years, even if the contents are of “no informational or evidential value.’’
Menino, Yoon, Flaherty, and businessman Kevin McCrea are competing in the Sept. 22 preliminary election. The top two vote-getters move on to the municipal election Nov. 3.
Both Yoon and Flaherty called for more transparency in government. But in 2005, a judge ruled that the City Council was guilty of 11 violations of open meeting laws while Flaherty was president, in a suit brought by McCrea. Flaherty publicly accepted responsibility in January, the same week he announced his campaign, for conducting public business behind closed doors.
