Board of Supervisors - Special Meeting

All right, I have three o'clock. Let's go ahead and call this meeting to order. Can I have a roll call, please? Supervisor Fitch?

Here.

Supervisor Stanton? Here. Supervisor Haas? Here. All right, we'll go ahead and review the agenda. Any conflict of interest? Otherwise, I will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor, please vote aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. Okay, it's a very short meeting today. It is a special meeting. There's only two items on the agenda. And for special meetings, we do allow public comment, but it is limited to what is on the agenda. So we do have another meeting at 6 o'clock where it's all open you can talk about anything a public comment but this meeting is limited to the two items that are on the agenda so if you have a public comment please come to the microphone state your name and where you're from and that you have three minutes to speak maybe remind them what's on the agenda oh what's on the agenda is discussing open records policy and process and we're also opening the RFP bids as well. Looks like we have three. Explain what they're for. I'm sorry? Explain what the bids are for. Oh, the bids are for, this is for the fiscal 25 audit as well as the forensic audit that we put out to RFP two months ago. So these are the responses. So if you have a public comment, please come to the podium, state your name and where you're from, and you have three minutes.

I am the mom of a minor sexual abuse victim whose trial took place here in Madison County.

I understand these were public records requests. My concern is what happened when these requests were reviewed and released. A member of this board reviewed and released county emails and I want to know what safeguards were in place to protect victims and their information. I have not lost trust in the county attorney's office, sheriff's office, or victim advocate's office. My daughter trusted the people in those offices during 19 months of absolute help. Whatever battle is happening between this board, the county attorney's office, and the sheriff's office, victims should never be collateral damage. Their privacy and safety should come first. It needs to stop. This isn't just about my daughter. This is about every victim who trusted those people with their most private information. Email communication matters. Victims can't always make a phone call or sit face to face. Sometimes writing an email is the only way they can say what they are not ready to say out loud. They need to know those communications will be handled with care, not shared with the world. This began in October 2024. Her trial wasn't until May 2022, 19 months. Those 19 months were hell. It didn't end when the trial ended. There was harassment, retaliation, intimidation, and unwanted attention surrounding her sexual abuse case. And it continues today. Through all of it, we stayed silent until today. We focus on protecting her. The person who requested these emails is related to the defendant in my daughter's case. He sat in the front row throughout the trial. The defendant's attorney was also Alan Ostergen, who also represents a member of this board. Those connections are important because the person who requested these emails is someone our family already had serious concerns about before this records request was ever made. I'm not claiming my daughter's information was released. I'm asking whether it was. Was my daughter's name included? Were there communications about her, my other children, or our family? And what about the other victims? Victims should never have to worry that the communications about harassment, retaliation, intimidation, or abuse could end up in the hands of the very person they were already concerned about. That is re-victimizing victims and their families. This is about the victims. I don't want this Rutgers request to destroy that trust. Being a member of this board should not by itself give someone access to confidential victim information. And one last thing, victims need those cameras too. They are there to help the victims feel safe. If you can't do it for anyone else, please stop all of this for the victims of Madison County.

Anyone else wish to speak? Going once, twice. All right, we'll go ahead and move on to the discussion regarding open records policy process. So Michelle, you put together a policy process for this. Did you want to talk about this first or is there, I know we've talked about this multiple times over the last year.

We have, we absolutely, and I just thought for, Because I think there's a lot of misinformation about what FOIA requests are, I put together what I would consider something to be beneficial to the public and also beneficial to us and kind of let everyone know what we go through and the attention we're trying to give to public records requests. If you will indulge me. Michelle, is this this? No, no. So I'm going to talk about that in here.

Okay. So we don't, we're not going over this actual document.

I'm going to kind of explore for edification. Okay. Okay. Okay, so everybody's very familiar with the right to examine public records. This is the preamble to the very first part of the FOIA for the Open Records Chapter 22. It talks about the right to examine records shall include the right to examine a public record without charge While the public record is in physical possession of the custodian, it mentions the right to make photographic copies. And it's a general overview of that. It also talks about 622-46, which you correct me if I'm wrong, I think that has to do with if you want to go to the recorders or the other folks. Aside from that, the open records policy, the history that we have here is going to be in 2023 when I was a board clerk, Aaron Hardesty approached me and we evaluated the need to adopt a policy for Madison County. I want to reiterate that at that time, nothing was formally adopted. We wrote a policy. It was reviewed by Erin. There were forms created for use on the website. Advisements were prepared for the public to help guide them and set expectations. Then the open records log was suggested for internal record keeping and there was a flow chart because that's just how geeky I am, create a flow chart and here's how it looks. There's a critical piece in there that says, is what they're asking for a public record or not? Then it was also determined, I want to add that, It was best because each office kind of had their own process. One of the things we discussed was whether a department or elected officials should be in custodian of their own records. You know, I don't have land records. I don't have zoning records. So as long as there was nothing, you know, contentious about it, everybody could just handle their own. So these are some of the forms that were created. Those are the ones you have.

in your possession right now so where um i'm sorry to interrupt sure so where in this flow chart is this the one you created with aaron okay okay so it's an older that was my prep my predecessor here is in 2023 okay i just want to clarify that okay

And when I took office in the auditor's office, then we just adopted this informally so that we would at least have something to go with.

So this was your guideline?

Yes, correct, but not formally adopted. I want to keep reiterating that. These are just some exceptions. We don't have to release data processing software development, geographic computer database by any person except under the terms and conditions of the acceptable to the governing body. The fees, we get into the fees, and I want to talk a little bit about what that looks like. So the examination and copying of public records shall be done under the supervision and lawful custodian of the records or the designee. The custodian shall not require the physical presence of the person requesting or receiving a copy and shall fill requests for copy of public records received in writing, by telephone, The only thing you really can't do is if it's telepathy. I can't read somebody's name but what they want. They don't have to fill out our forms. That's the other thing I really want to make sure. There's nothing in the code that says you have to fill out my form. So then this is when the questions arise. The practical application, you know, who is the custodian of the record? Who's responsible for fulfillment of it? And these are kind of the tasks I think I'm hopeful we're gonna go at today. What requires review? How's it done? And how do we ensure uniformity? Supervision of fees. This talks about the lawful custodian shall make every reasonable effort to provide the public record request at no cost other than copying costs for a record for which takes less than 30 minutes to produce. In the event the expense is necessary, such expenses must be reasonable and communicated with the requester upon the receipt of the request. A person may contest. the reasonableness of the lawful custodian's expenses as provided for in Chapter 22. Go ahead.

So if I come in and I ask you for a FOIA request and you say it's going to be $29 and I say, I don't want to pay $29, I'll give it in.

It's not negotiable because the reason it should not be negotiable is then you are then held to that standard of how you're going to treat every single person. And I talk about that next.

before is because they actually updated the code for this because we had their government and bodies that were withholding records because they charged very very high fees so what you don't want is to say i'll give you the record but you owe me thirteen hundred dollars that's unreasonable twenty nine dollars is reasonable so it also has to be um

related to the actual cost. So for instance, if I'm gonna charge for my time, that's not my IPERS, my benefits, my overhead, my lighting, my office, et cetera. It's just the saving wage. Yeah, exactly. And I'm hoping everybody's finding this helpful. So here's how it works in reality. So you're going to get an email, and it's going to say, I would like all of this stuff. They're going to give some parameters. And the emails were really falling into a little trouble here. This is a sample. This is a sample. You guys, everything I'm using here is samples. It's not from one particular FOIA. I mixed it up. And then let's just say they want a time period. I've had time periods going back four years. I've had time periods going back three years. And like you said, Heather, there are people out there that that's their job all day long is to go to government entities and test you. Okay, does that make sense? And there was some legislation passed this last July about that. Okay, so then it's very helpful if they give you a time period. And then when we go to our managed services, we'll give them the parameters and the time, and they'll generate, okay, I found this many matches for the parameters you gave me, and I looked in 33 out of 251 locations. And that's literally a cut and paste out of one of my emails.

But that doesn't mean 325 are ones you're going to be releasing. Perfect.

Exactly. Let's move on. I love that. So anyway, last year, the auditor's office established with the assistance of our managed services, what should we be estimating? And remember, this is estimated, and if it doesn't take as much as we estimate, we don't charge it, okay? You may have to pay it up front, but if it doesn't take that much time, It was about three minutes to pull open, review, redact, and disseminate, beginning to end. And we determined this was a reasonable method of estimating the cost of the requester because we were having some, I think one was 3,000 each items. And so that's just some calculations that we do. There's 18, well, this last one was 325, So you would just multiply that by three. and then you divide it by 60 and you get an hour a number of hours and then whoever's going to be doing it that's the hourly rate so if i have a salary my salary comes out to roughly 39 an hour if it's me that's going to be doing the revealing if it's the attorney um well i'll talk about that in a minute so then what happens is the person says yep that sounds good that sounds reasonable this is really important to me and you'll get a zip file right and then you extract it go ahead can i come in and say um you make more than that clerk i want the clerk to do it so so that's money i think the iowa code requires you use the least costly correct person so then you have to ask yourself um based on current workload oh whose desk it goes on sure okay No, no. I mean, again, so my clerk has her regular bunch of work. And so does she do her work at overtime or does she do her work at straight time? Do you see what I'm saying? If you've got 40 hour work week and this, like I said, like this one example, 93 hours was that one. And so 93 hours, where are we going to find 93 man hours to do this work? and and so that with that example 325 emails remember i pulled them for i pulled them from every every different i don't want okay it's not from one these are only examples okay so my point here is so do you then because i'm salaried I'm going to have to work the weekend to do that. And you're not going to pay any more or less for my hourly rate is the reason. So I can pay my first deputy $45 an hour, or I can pay myself $39.

So if you look at it that way, it's just, you're, you're the auditor. We don't want you doing that kind of stuff. We want the clerk.

I literally am doing that.

She has to, I have to, because again, I'm just saying, why, what can, is it possible to Not that I want the clerk to have me on task.

No, but so let's just say the board clerk, she works 20 hours a week. That's what the budget is. So where am I going to find that 93 hours for her to go through and look at that? And I'll show you the next deal. So then you extract this. Let's say we open this up. Boom. Okay, so that's what you're left with. Does that make sense? Okay. So while you can search the folders, think of how many times the word auditor comes up, right? It's maybe not what they're looking for, but you have to go through every single one. And the reason is if you don't go through every document, How do you then know you've fulfilled the request that they wanted? It's double edged sword.

Yeah. So that's why it takes so much time.

Correct. And again, I'm not presenting this to complain or bitch or moan or groan, but this is the truth. This is what happens and that's what I want everybody.

Is it possible to request? I'm getting lots of text. Teams is not working.

I'm sorry, what?

Teams is not working. I'm getting a lot of text.

Yeah, I apologize for that, guys. I didn't oversee this meeting. Sorry, I'll answer them.

So, I forgot. Oh, is there a way, like say if you got a screen full of that, all those folders. Do you go back to the requester saying we got a huge response? Can you narrow the request?

That has happened too. Exactly. It has happened too. Reduce it down. For instance, instead of using the word auditor, or let's say they're searching for a name. So instead of just a single first name, add only when it has both names, like a first and a last name. That would reduce it. That would reduce it. Okay. Okay. Okay so but anyway so and this is why I like having a policy because if one elected official isn't charging for their time I literally have somebody say well I'm gonna go get it from her because I don't want to pay it I know I can get it so that's what I would try to avoid as well. The other thing I stumbled across as I was preparing this is and this is why is a clerk the right person to do these big, broad scopes? Because again...

Determining whether it's confidential or not. Bingo. Okay, I get it.

So the information container communication, if it's with a private citizen, once you release it, so if that private citizen communicated with an elected official and they would not do that if they knew it was going to be public, that's part of 18-B. So that would intimidate folks. Then these are just like real examples. I would like to establish a copy, cost per copy. IPB, they were willing to entertain $305 an hour versus, they were also willing to, county attorney Swanson was $70 an hour. If someone wanted to go through the archives in the basement, and we have had somebody do that, want to come go download through our election materials, we would need to be present with them and then in the case and this is my last example because i don't want this to be a long deal but in the situation of invoices and claims i know you and i had a conversation i would like to show everybody what that means So we had one individual that wanted four years of records related to some supplies. And so I can search by fiscal year. I would first have to figure out, okay, where all do we get our supplies, right? How many different vendors do we get supplies from? So then you would decide, you'd see search by vendor and by year. Okay, so this one for instance, this vendor I think was Central Iowa Distribution of Supplies. So then you go ahead, you see those little yellow boxes? Those are scanned claims. We don't physically keep those. I mean, we do, but they're in boxes in the basement.

So they're already paid claims. These are paid claims. You just keep the paper copies in the basement.

And we scan them into the system so we can, for this. So then what you do is you pick like trash bags, right? And you're still not there yet. So then you're gonna go in and you're gonna view it on our document locator. So you're clicking through all this. And then finally you get to a three to four page document after you've decided whether that supply meets the requested parameters. And if you don't print it and say, oh, well, you don't have to print that for me. You still have to scan it into a, take that PDF and create another file for it. which that would be easier than printing them all, but you still have to open them all. Yeah. So, okay.

Is there any way solutions can do that for you?

Yeah, at $195 an hour. Okay.

But if they can do it in five minutes, it'd be cheaper than you taking...

how many hours did it take oh i i you know what i could ask that question it was my understanding that they have to follow the same protocol that we do meaning they they don't have a search okay but maybe they do that's a really good question because that would be a lot cheaper for the citizen than it would it would absolutely and you know i'm i'm open to ideas like that um again and then that's all i really had to talk about um and then just the iowa public information board i for another um there they receive and process complaints about non-compliance so anyway that that's all i have guys okay i just thought that would be helpful for everybody as we're talking and this is the one that you want us to review to kind of talk about um your your recommendations or policy and that's taken from story in boone county

So how do we handle it if other elected officials don't want to comply? Comply with what? If they say, no, I'm not following this procedure. I'll take care of it myself. Yes. I mean, they can. I mean, yeah. OK. And then how would we align that with the agreement we have with solutions? Do we just need to add a little step in that chart to where, you know, get with the supervisor, see if it's okay, and then you can process the request?

So right now, they've stopped our request because we don't have an internal policy.

I thought they just stopped it when there was a conflict between them. That's not my understanding, but I could be wrong. Okay. So we need a clarification on that because my understanding is that they stopped one particular request because there was a difference of opinion and supervisors and that's what we're going to talk about today too. So don't let me forget that. So if we can get clarification on that, I don't think that it's... Well, I can read through the email. Yeah.

You want me to read what they wrote?

I thought they said stop and that was that one particular request, Diane.

No? That is not the, that's not the, and I think you were copied in on that one too, that email.

They were going to pause until we created a policy on the FOIA, the big polls, because right now they're all going to you.

based on well i don't think they're going to because any supervisor can ask for that okay they're going to only the supervisors i don't know if they're getting open records or not are you getting any jess yes what do you mean am i getting them from solutions are you getting them from the public that you will have to pull are they responding to you i haven't just submitted one recently oh okay so

It came from Mike.

Is that my bar? No, it's Chad. Or is it Chad? Chad. Chad Bodie. Here it is. It was on Monday the 31st.

That was from that particular ticket. yeah that was just it's just this particular ticket because i remember two different instructions right so they want they're putting on a hold for anything for this particular ticket until they get instructions so that's why i put it up it's part of this agenda because i want to get a board direction to give them and they do state we do not determine what records are responsive what may be withheld or what is released those decisions rest of the county correct and that's the right that's the right position for them to take

So this particular situation, wasn't it related to a DCI investigation?

No. This particular ticket had to do with a citizen request for records. And this particular citizen wanted all communication that had to do with him. So he gave parameters, including unfortunately disparaging terms that were being used in social media against him. So he, I'm not going to presume the reason, but I got the request and you all have, I believe, a copy of that request as well as the exemption parameters. And to answer your concern, no, nothing. Nothing was released. And because of the search parameters, I don't even think that even came up.

So to your point, I'm glad you should clarify what you were just referring to, because that was one of my points of clarification. There was no victim's information, no compromise. There was none of that. Is that correct? That is correct. Anything related to any criminal matters, the county attorney, the county sheriff?

Nope.

Is that correct? That is correct.

So in fact, as a regular matter of course, whenever I do an open records request, I make exclusions. Two of the exclusions are any emails from our county attorney and emails from our sheriff for that very reason. Because that is something they handle. And then I've advised citizens that put a request to say, please send a separate request to these two other gentlemen. And then they will fulfill their portion of the request.

But the request did not exclude any of the MEs or any of the county deputies. It didn't exclude any of those or other attorneys. It didn't exclude any of those.

Well, that's where the filter comes in, as you talked about earlier. What it pulls is a total. And then you go through it and you exclude things that are not applicable. So that's why it's important for not just to do a data dump where you get that thing and you just hand it over to the citizen. You have to review it and see if it's confidential or not. So we as elected officials and county employees have an obligation to keep things confidential we're all under that same requirement when we hear things for instance from personnel things we don't share that we're not supposed to share it even if we know it so we're all under the same obligations for open records requests as well In fact, a copy of those open, the records that were provided to the citizen was also provided to the auditor because she requested it and I gave that to her. So she has a copy of all those records that were supplied to that citizen. Did you, you told me that they were provided to an outside entity. Is that back? Have you gotten it back yet? No. Okay. So they're no longer in her possession. I might have to recreate those again, unfortunately. It took a while, but I'm willing to do that to make sure that the county has, so you board members have that information. But personal information investigations are not shared. I don't know where that rumor started. It's unfortunate that people are spreading that misinformation without any facts. But Michelle, thank you for showing that on the screen so people can see.

I just want you guys to know that. So yeah, what the output is. Well, it goes to, it goes to supervisors or the board and then from there they get to do with, you know, then they have to process that.

Well, that's true too for many requesters. So when county attorney puts in a ticket, that's the same thing it's going to look like for him. He's going to hear the total number of emails and then where they pulled from and then he gets that wonderful data dump and then he has to go through all of those.

I think it's just really what I want to point out that just critical that every single item is gone through.

Every single item is gone through because to your point, you don't want to be releasing things that aren't confidential.

But you also want to make sure that you're not missing something that you should be handing over. Well, I not, you know, just say, you know, okay, I don't think it's going to be in this file folder.

Well, I, excuse me. I look at every file folder and if it's not applicable to a request, it's not shared. And, and I take less than three minutes for one because most of the output is not applicable because it pulls a lot of things. Yeah. So, um, like that 325. I don't know how many of those are applicable. Maybe half, maybe a third. I don't know. So that's why it's so tedious to do these open records requests because you have to do that. The other issue is one of the other exclusions I put in there, and I don't know if anyone else is doing that. I recommend you do do that if you're not already, is I put out, I include all the domain names of any law firm in which we're involved in litigation. So there's four law firms, now five. I'm going to have to add a fifth. So those are excluded. So attorney client information is not accidentally pulled. So those are other exclusions as well. And I know Diane, you've asked for that to be, and I'm going to say, no, we do not have We do not have the right for attorney-client privilege documents. They don't have that. We can't look at those. So I know you made the request to solutions, but there's a reason why those filters are in there is because I don't want to accidentally get access to something I shouldn't. So that's why those filters are in there. And I would hope that you'd be of the same mind. So anyway, so that's kind of how we do it. If you want, if you guys want the list of law firms, we can add a fifth one. Yeah, because that's more than I realize. So you have that, so you're not accidentally picking up things that you shouldn't. Also, you need to add, if you haven't already, adding County Attorney Swanson and Sheriff Barnes. Unfortunately, it's a little bit more tedious for the citizens that put in requests, but they just literally just do a duplicate request. So they put in their request and they send a separate one to those two. So from my understanding, our sheriff has been very responsive to that and understands the situation here. So what we probably need to do is maybe tweak this policy, kind of maybe adding that in there.

Well, I would like to, I'm not okay with the board disseminating my emails.

I'm not either. I'm not okay with you disseminating my emails either. So let's talk about that matter. Well, I'm not here for an argument.

So here's the thing is that these are open records. If you read the IPIP website, the default is openness. So none of these emails are ours. They don't belong to us. There's specific exemptions obviously in code, but these are all open records. And the reason why I have people coming to me is they're not getting responses from when they go to other people. um and i really don't want to be spending my days doing open records requests i have better things to do but i understand the frustration as i'm sure you do and so they come to me for that and i've had a couple people explain say to me that they believe that the county certain people in the county are denying open records requests by charging more money

and i don't want to be that's why i think it's really important to have that formula and you know the third party and i mean i didn't i i would i would love to charge two

but given the situation we're in i don't know if that's a at this time it's a good idea at least that's my personal feeling i can't put that on other people but i don't want the cost to be a barrier to getting records they have a right to records and records have been shared when i requested and if there was a delay because of legal review or it's taking long or in the case where records come to me they're stacking up so it's taking a little longer than normal try to communicate with the the requester and according to Iowa Public Information Board as long as you're communicating and you're explaining why there's a delay they seem to be okay with that so I think what we need to do regarding this policy I like the policy I think we need to add to talk a little bit more of how that's going to work with the solutions contract also how that's going to work if elected official decides not to follow it which they have a right to do And then also, what do we do if there's a challenge? So you had mentioned that on the slide, which I appreciate you doing. So if someone wants to say this is too much, right now the normal process is they go to ipib and then they just kind of wait until that's discussed so do we do we want to have an escalation process with us before that we inconvenience the citizen and having them go to ipib well i would go through well i'm thinking that you already have that in place with your amendment with solutions will you just take us out

And that's how I proceed it.

Well, the citizens have taken that step. I would rather not be processing every records request. My preference would be that all departments are responsive and give things to people as quickly as possible when they request it and without a fight. Because I've been doing a lot of these, and I'd rather not. I mean, I will do them, but I would rather not be the, I'd rather not the board of supervisors be in charge of that because of lack of responsiveness in other departments. So, uh, that's not the preference. The ideal was, Hey, we want, we have open records of press. Do you have an issue with this? No. Like for instance, the example for the Rob Sands emails for the audit, I turned it over to you because you're the one that, that, that dealt with it. Most of the emails involved you. it made no sense for me to be more emails involved towards the end but in the beginning but in the beginning when i was not part of the audit process that's not me at all that was you and kylie and honor sand and if i recall from that uh open records request they asked all the way back to last year and i didn't get involved until

So that would be one of those big dumps. Right.

So are you saying that... My point is that I followed the solutions request to say, hey, we need a supervisor to okay this. I did that and turned it over to you. So that's the way it's supposed to work. It's not working that way. And I'm not quite sure how to fix it. because i don't want them to actually turn to me and say okay this is not being done i need you to do this for me now because that's not that's not efficient we can't have the supervisors spending days filling open records requests there's other stuff we need to do so if the board wants to review this or if you have any feedback

I want to review this. I want to make changes and bring it to the next regular meeting. There's some things I see I want to change.

Okay, so the other thing too, what do you think Jess?

Yeah, it's going to take some time to walk through all this because I've got some things too that I would like referenced and some clarity and I think you know this also bleeds into our records retention policy as well. Yes. And I think that's imperative that you know we while we're addressing this, it all relates and it all needs to be updated.

Because one thing I found out is that we'll have to look at the retention from a tech side too. Everything we do, there's a limit based on storage. Like for instance, I don't know if you know this, Michelle, but Teams only has 120-day limit on storage. Correct. So if we're using Teams to store recorded meetings, that's not going to work. because it's limited so there's another we're recording we're recording this this is our this is our we're recording this so we're good okay and we've had instances where this the battery died or something happened and we realized turn it on yes that's okay so um So we wanna make sure that we're aware of all of that because we definitely need to look at our retention policy because I'm afraid that we may be having some problems with future open records requests if we don't change that.

Michelle, do you have, When I worked for the state, I had very strict retention. Each file had save one year, open, superseded, destroyed, seven years, perpetual. Do you have that, that you have to save certain things, recordings have to be saved forever?

Some of our legal documents, absolutely. And I think that should be- But emails, I think you're speaking about emails and

video surveillance and the legislature is very clear on policy for records in code what's not unclear our code is not caught up is regarding tech so so electric electronic documents emails security video recordings that kind of stuff is not clear because our code has not caught up with the tech. So hopefully soon that will happen. But in the meantime, I think that we probably should be proactive and making sure we have a policy for retention for tech.

I wonder if you could dump a lot of emails on the thumb drives and just categorize them.

You can drag them in. When I was a board clerk, I drug

uh emails for meetings into a folder yeah and just that way you had the current and then you had the year prior and then then you could just keep on sitting well we can do that the other option is to get an external drive and then store the external drives they would have to be in a temperature controlled area the third option is to do cloud backup And then we can pull it whenever we want. Whereas external drives, you have to get the physical device and plug it in and download it and stuff. Whereas cloud, right now we do have backup on cloud. But the retention on that, you have to have enough space. So we have to determine as a board how long we want to retain emails or retain electronic documents. So that's something the board has to determine. Well, I think that's the department has to tell us how long you need to retain certain things. Well, for emails, that's a policy for the board because they have their own policy based on code for their records. This is just actual, and I don't know about you, but most of the requests I get for open records is emails. I very rarely get records requests for stuff like that. Anything else?

And that's why we go to our solutions provider because, yeah, I can quickly do this, but if you're going to take me back farther with other people, I'm not comfortable disseminating information.

So how far back can they go currently with solutions that say emails are requested?

They can go back as far as you want. The problem is that we didn't always retain things as employees left. so unless there was like a legal hold or there was a reason there was usually a limited amount of time that's retained because there was no formal policy in place this is something i recently discovered so uh what i think we need to do is what's that six months six months to store that's right after an employee leaves oh i thought it was 30 days We can get that clarified. Well, I think it should be longer than that, especially for open records or at minimum. So I think we should have a policy, a general policy, and then we should also have a policy for longer retention if there's a legal matter or if there is um an issue or something like that we can discuss different different policies but we need to have a policy deal currently and i think it's time that we get with the times and do that so um to be um

summarizing uh you guys are going to review what you have in front of you and then bring it to the next um next time bring it to the next regular just put on old meetings let's be very specific here because i mean do we are we all coming up with our own draft are we just making notes and comments on particular parts of this or i want to make notes

I mean, I got a lot of notes here.

Yeah, so I think as a board we should discuss it. Do we want to have a separate meeting to discuss that? A work session rather than doing it in a... in a public meeting and that way we can hash out what we like.

I'd rather not do something like this should be a work session in my opinion. Okay. Because we're going to get down to the details, right?

Yeah, I think so. And I think it's important enough to give you the focus. So we're all on the same page, of course, with the understanding that elected officials separate elected officials don't necessarily have to abide by this policy, though it's advised that we do.

But can we all agree that we need consistency and uniformity so that our citizens and our county employees know exactly what to expect? Can we all agree with that?

I really like the policy the way it's written, so I'm actually anxious to see what your suggestions are. And the thing is, just remember, this was also reviewed by an attorney, so sometimes you guys want to have it reviewed by another attorney.

Well, some things have changed since Aaronson, so we want to make sure that we're current in that. And I think too, I don't know, I have to check, but I thought I have had an example of an open record policy on their website. I don't know if they, I can't remember if they have. I remember seeing one, I can't remember if it was their website or a different website. So that could be someplace we can look to. And so what do you folks think about doing a word session?

I think that makes the most sense.

You guys gonna be ready by 15 next week?

Now at 930 we have Canvas.

It's going to take exactly five seconds because I think probably 50 people voted.

So let's go 10 o'clock Thursday the 15th. Tuesday the 15th? Yeah.

Do we want to be sitting around here for 25 minutes or can't we just set it at 9? It's at 930 so you go 935.

I mean Canvas is 935. I don't care. 945. There is a watershed meeting that day and really I've been to it 24 times. That's the 11th. That's that day.

It's 11 to 2. I got a communication that it was on the 16th.

There's nothing on the agenda for the 15th, by the way.

i'm okay i think you're right i think it is yeah so i was planning to go to that badger creek watershed meeting and tour on the 16th that's what you are so you're gonna have to learn yeah okay so we're going to do a um work session tuesday And I have a note that previously we talked about doing the RFP audit awards. That's right. That day too. We did do that. Add it to that. So do we need to, I think that needs to be in depth. I mean, are we going to be able to do all that in a week and get them? Oh yeah. Okay. I think so. Okay.

There's only three. Well, true. So, yeah, so we should probably do the canvas. That should be a special, well, we're going to be making a decision, so it has to be a special meeting. Right. So maybe do the canvas and then do a resolution to choose if the board wants to do something.

Do your canvas at 930, open your special meeting at 945, and then do your this and your audit report.

Once you do the audit reward award first, and then you can do your work session because one of these, I'm sure that'll be very long.

Okay. All right. All right. That'll work because we're opening it today. You guys are taking them home, taking your copies home for review, and then we'll have a decision on the 15th. So, yeah. Okay. All right. So one other thing, too. is the solutions wanted a decision regarding, Diane had requested that the original poll I did for the citizen for his name be all the filters that were filtered out, all the domains for the law firms be removed. So the new request is including all of that. And I'm opposed to that.

Yeah, that's violating privilege and that's not acceptable.

And that's not, privilege is not subject to open records. No, sure not. So I'm not, but again, the solutions wanted a board decision. So I will carry that back. What ticket number is that? That ticket number is 937168.

nine three seven one six eight um request for confirmed board direction that was sent on 831 and that was the um

original tickets uh with the person's name um with the uh not redacting or excluding attorneys yes i i had had the exclusions in there along with mr swanson and mr barnes and that should be retained and um

She didn't ask for that to be removed. She only asked for the law firms to be removed.

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. So I don't want that. I want the exclusions to remain. So you want to make a motion then?

I'll make a motion that the exclusions remain to not include the law firm communications or law enforcement in the request from Diane. Do I have a second?

I will second the discussion. Diane, did you want to explain why you wanted to have access to those records?

Because I don't feel like I have access to anything. Everything is possible litigation. That means absolutely nothing to me.

No, these emails have to do with this private citizen. Why would you? I'm trying to understand.

Because there was an email. given to a private citizen of a complaint I made that the complaint went absolutely nowhere. That should have never been released.

That has nothing to do with the law firm.

Okay. No, I have nothing to say. Okay. You're going to vote.

All right. All in favor, please vote aye. Aye. All opposed? Nay. Motion carries. Okay. So the next item on the agenda is to open up the bid. Since there's three, I will give you each one to do. Hopefully they included enough copies.

Do you guys want to announce which we received for the record?

What firms? Yes. Okay, the one we have is Dr. Tilly.

I have CLA-1A. I'm gonna do this. This one's eight. We want to make sure we're all together though. And that is UH-Y or UH. I have UH-Y. what they did on eighth year. Did they use both or just one? Are you going to say this somewhere? No.

Alright, here's the music.

I see what it is. Okay.

Looks like all three are

They just took the B. Michelle, would you, for your records, would you make one? They included an agreement for us to review. So it looks like we just. What? The last page. Of what? The last page.

Holy cow.

Holy cow.

Okay, which one are you looking at?

I'll let you guys decide if you want to. Yeah.

Okay, so you guys can take the time to look that over. We have the names of the folks and go ahead and Look over that. Well, you know, I don't have a chance to really look at it. They're all just clothing. Yep. Which kind of makes sense because you really can't do fiscal 25. Because otherwise, you know. And I think that's something that Kylie requested too, is to do the forensic first. This is great. I'm looking for the amount for Bay Cotillion. I'm not finding it.

32. Is it 32? No. And then it looks like that. Oh, there's a fee schedule.

Yeah, I saw the fee schedule. Yeah, I'm not seeing it. I just see the . They want a prepayment. Yeah. I don't see anything on the paper, Kelly. Do you see it? Have you found it?

I'm going to go deeper, but yeah.

But now I'm just seeing the . Oh, here it is. Page fees and billing. It's kind of in the middle, but it doesn't have page. But that's just the hourly rate. It didn't have the total. It just had the hourly rate, yeah. Okay, well, we can study this. We don't need to make this proposal.

Okay. All right, so we'll come back on the 15th after you guys have a chance to review it. And any questions? Otherwise, I'll take a motion to adjourn. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor, please vote aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carried.

Will the bridge work for the next meeting?

Yes. Okay, good. I apologize to everybody that tried to get in. I got slanted.

So I took it.

Well, and then we have, it's kind of like back in the old days.