EDITORIAL: Woodside opens e-mails to public EDITORIAL: Woodside opens e-mails to public (February 09, 2005)

Woodside residents with an interest in open government received an unexpected gift recently when the town settled a public records dispute with the Bass family.

The deal includes a provision for Woodside to make e-mail messages to Town Council members public, which was a major issue in the records dispute. It means that most e-mails sent to council members will be considered public record, and be made available to anyone who asks for them.

The new arrangement was agreed to in a settlement with Anne and Robert Bass, who had demanded that the town release all e-mails sent to council members' private or business accounts that pertained to a proposed horse trail easement across their Canada Road property. Such accounts generally are not accessible to the public even though many local governments have converted to all-public or mostly public systems.

The Basses' interest in the e-mail of Woodside council members was piqued when their initial horse trail easement request was scuttled after the Town Council demanded more concessions to abandon a trail easement and accept a replacement along a different route.

The additional demands were rejected by the Basses, who soon after filed a sweeping public records request for all the town's correspondence about the trail issue, including all e-mails sent from council members' private accounts. The town balked, and later began negotiations, which led to the settlement.

Under the deal, Woodside paid the Basses a "token" $10,000, but more important, agreed to establish e-mail accounts for all council members on the town's server, with all e-mails to be retained for two years. Copies of the e-mails are available upon request.

The town also is now publishing a disclaimer on its Web site, disclosing that any e-mails sent to and from the new accounts are public records. Addresses and links to the new e-mail accounts can be accessed at www.WoodsideTown.org.

By instituting the new policy, Woodside moves in the right direction, closer to the policy of Menlo Park, which makes public all e-mails sent to a common "city council" address, as well as communications to a particular council member. The Menlo Park Web site makes it clear that e-mails to the council are public record. The site collects e-mail by month and lists it for all to see.

In Atherton, each council member has a town e-mail address, and messages sent to the council as a whole are public record, as are messages sent to individual council members.

Portola Valley publishes e-mail addresses for four of its five council members on the town Web site, but at this point has no formal process for making e-mails to the council public. A spokesperson said most e-mail is mundane, and that the town staff would attempt to accommodate requests if a specific question came up. (Councilman Richard Merk, who said he does not consider e-mail an effective way to communicate, said he canceled his account because he was receiving 200 junk messages to every substantial one.)

Woodside should be commended for agreeing to open up its e-mail process. This is a form of communication that soon will eclipse the old-fashioned paper letters sent by "snail mail." Among cities served by the Almanac, only Portola Valley lags behind on this front. We urge town leaders to update their Web site soon, and publish a statement that e-mail to council members is public record, as it should be.

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