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Commissioners Approve Policy On Using Blackberrys, Laptop, Text Messaging
August 21, 2009
The Escambia County Commission has approved a new policy that restricts how commissioners can use technology during meetings and to conduct public business.
The policy, drafted by County Attorney Allison Rogers, “is to establish rules for the county commissioners use of technology to ensure they conduct themselves in a responsible, professional, ethical and efficient manner, with an eye toward the public’s perception of their elected officials”.
In the past, it has not been uncommon to see a commissioner typing a message on a Blackberry or other cell phone, or typing on their laptop computer during a commission meeting.
The policy forbids a commissioner from having any device, including a personal cell phone, powered on during a meeting unless it is on silent or vibrate.
The policy forbids commissioners from communicating on blogs; social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter; or using text or instant messaging for county related matters. The policy even encourages commissioners request that text and instant messages be disabled on their county-owned devices.
All emails related to county business will also be required to using an official county email address — no personal email addresses can be used for county business. If a commissioner receives an email related to county business at a personal email address, they are to forward it to county address and request that the sender use a county address in the future.
Florida’s broad public record’s laws state that emails related to county business are public record and must be archived, or maintained.
If a commissioner violates the policy, the other commissioners “may take an available enforcement action against a fellow commissioner”.
“The point is, you don’t want these things to be an interactive way of communicating with each other,” Rogers said. “The policy is really one part courtesy and three parts preventative medicine.”
Comments
One Response to “Commissioners Approve Policy On Using Blackberrys, Laptop, Text Messaging”
We had one commissioner to take a slogan during election that read “Let’s bring common sense back to county government”. I think when you have to set up rules and regulations for the rule making arm of county government some one is completely out of touch. When election times come around we should make all five seats of the commissioners vacant. Surely there are five people that would like to make this kind of money and for certain we could then have common sense at that level. We expect our children to obey rules with cell phones and text messaging but never would I think you would have to tell those people [you can't do this when you are taking care of our business].