Menino STILL won't get voted out: State tells city to seize aide’s computers

[graywarrior]

Specialist must be hired to recover e-mail

Secretary of State William F. Galvin yesterday ordered the city of Boston to immediately seize City Hall computers and software used by the top policy aide to Mayor Thomas M. Menino and to hire an independent computer forensics specialist to try to retrieve e-mails the aide deleted.

Alan N. Cote, head of the Public Records Division in Galvin’s office, wrote a letter to Menino’s chief lawyer saying the demand was based on a “credible belief’’ that the city violated state public records law by allowing the aide, Michael J. Kineavy, to routinely delete e-mails in such a way that copies were not preserved by city servers.

In response to a public records request by the Globe, Menino’s administration had said that it had found only 18 e-mails to or from Kineavy between Oct. 1, 2008 and March 31 of this year.

Cote said his office received copies of 300 messages listing Kineavy as a sender or recipient and sent via city computers “which now appear to have been improperly deleted.’’ The e-mails are now a central issue in this year’s mayoral race; two challengers to Menino said they turned Kineavy e-mails over to Galvin’s office.

State public records law requires municipal employees to save electronic correspondence for at least two years, even if the contents are of “no informational or evidential value.’’ Penalties include fines of up to $500 or prison sentences of up to one year.

Galvin said in an interview that he hoped to resolve the problem “noncriminally.’’

“I’m looking for a prompt way to resolve this in the interest of public access to information,’’ he said. “If it turns out these were permanently destroyed, it raises a bigger question that we have to have resolved.’’

Menino said in an interview last night, “I’ll cooperate with anybody, because this was an honest mistake made by the administration.’’

Link to rest of story

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/09/15/state_orders_boston_to_seize_computers_software_of_menino_aide/

[Raven]

1. Much ado about nothing...the Mayor is teflon. :-)

[graywarrior]

2. Makes the other candidates kinda look desperate.