TITLE:
title
CITY E-MAIL MANAGEMENT POLICY
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DEPARTMENT: CITY MANAGER'S OFFICE/CITY CLERK DIVISION
PRESENTED BY: BRENDA GREEN, CITY CLERK
CONTACT INFORMATION: BRENDA GREEN, CITY CLERK, (714) 754-5221
RECOMMENDATION:
recommendation
Staff recommends the City Council adopt Resolution No. 2023-XX approving the City E-Mail Management Policy.
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BACKGROUND:
At the present time, the City of Costa Mesa does not have a policy specific to e-mail management, even though e-mails are generally covered by the City's minimum retention period. The proposed E-Mail Management Policy provides that e-mails sent or received by City personnel shall be retained for a period of two-years based on the send date of the message. The two-year retention period allows the City to manage the data and is in line with best practices for public organizations. E-mail from the last two years will be preserved on the City IT servers, except those related to specific litigation holds, which may require longer retention.
Upon the adoption of this Resolution, the City Clerk's office and the Information Technology Department will produce a timeline for the implementation plan for all City employees with an email account. Further procedures and training will be developed for determination of what e-mails should be retained beyond the two year minimum retention period consistent with the City's records retention policy by Department and program area.
Failure to follow proper retention practices has and will continue to result in ever-increasing costs for additional storage space. Moreover, and of greater concern, it hampers the City's ability to get its computer infrastructure, website and servers back online after a power outage due to the extraordinary volume of e-mails that the City currently holds. A two-year retention policy will enable swift recovery of the exchange mail server much faster after an emergency or catastrophic issue. Given the growing frequency of erratic storm event...
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