We recently ran into this problem when we received an open records request 
by a local newspaper for all City Council email.  Our policy simply states that, 
unless the person sending the correspondence has specifically expressed a 
desire to have the correspondence remain private, all correspondence is public 
record.  While looking through the City Council public mail box, we found many 
emails that included that routine confidentiality disclaimer and concluded that 
this was not enough, in itself, to keep this correspondence out of public view.  
Our attorneys, along with the rest of the staff, have been instructed to clearly 
label emails with "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line in order to avoid confusion.

I'm failry certain however, that we have not seen the end of this particular 
question...

As a side note, we are also in the very beginning stages of developing a policy 
regarding retention of correspondence from out City hosted social networking 
sites and other such related correpespondence.  I know this was very recently 
brought up, and would be extremely interested to hear if any other home-rule 
municipaities have developed a policy for handling this.

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