I suffered some technical difficulties on Friday. Regrettably, I was not able to provide you with the special free blog post I promised. Not to worry. It may be Monday, June 23. It may be the start of a new work week. But nonetheless, here is your Friday installment of City Manager Question Time.
Question 5.3: Mr. Neal, I was paging through the recent issue of American City & County and came across the article on local officials blogging. Our City Council members have been interested in doing this but have been told by our City Attorney and IT Director that it would be difficult to comply with open records requests. I’m assuming that Minnesota also has an Open Records Law. Can you tell me how you comply with the open records law when using your blogging website? If there was a request for something you blogged about, say 6 years ago, would you be able to comply? Thanks for any information you can provide me. Stay warm!
Scott Says: Minnesota does indeed have an Open Records law. My blog complies with the Open Records law because everything I’ve ever written on the blog is available 24/7/365. It’s important, as a blog writer, to remember that. I always keep in mind that anything I put into this blog is available 24/7/365. Thus, it’s important to be respectful, truthful and factual. It’s important to know that if you’re not respectful, truthful and factual – someone out there is going to make you eat your words someday. I know because I’ve had to do it a couple of times, and they did not taste very good.
I hope that helps.
