John Phillips wrote:
> There is a limit to the value we get from any recordkeeping exercise.
I think we will need to start seeing more of the costs associated with
email management activities.

John, I couldn't agree more with you on this. In spite of my long
standing belief in transparency, I actually rue the day e-mail became a
public record: the kinds of issues we see right now, and the
unanticipated costs of them, were entirely predictable as far back as
the original fight over Bush 1's e-mail. The cost and deliberation
issues concerned me the most. I thought e-mail should have been treated
like a telephone conversation. I thought we were setting up an
impossible to meet standard. However, RMs had little to say about it,
lawyers and the press had a lot, and the cat's out of the bag and
unlikely to be put back in. In my opinion, creating a "normal course of
business" environment would mitigate the costs of constantly being in
"reaction" mode. As we have discussed before, public access should:

- Protect the privacy of the individual;
- Start with a presumption of access;
- Develop exemptions to access through an open legislative process; and
- Allocate resources to support those requirements.

Just to clarify another point made previously: Legislatures don't impose
laws on the executive branch. The public access laws passed - including
presidential records acts - were, for the most part, signed into law by
presidents and governors, unless a veto was over-ridden. 

Dwight Wallis, CRM
Records Administrator
Multnomah County Fleet, Records, Electronics, Distribution and Stores
(FREDS)
1620 S.E. 190th Avenue
Portland, OR 97233
Phone: (503)988-3741
Fax: (503)988-3754
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