For the past several days there have been ongoing revelations regarding mishandling of public records in the city’s executive branch, and particularly in the Mayor’s Office. In brief: for several months from late 2019 through mid-summer 2020, text messages from the city-issued phones of Mayor Durkan, SFD Chief Scoggins, and SPD Chief Best were not archived, and the problem wasn’t discovered until last summer. Once it was discovered and efforts to retrieve the lost texts failed, the Mayor’s Office tried to recreate them by contacting the people that the Mayor had texted. The Mayor’s Office then — allegedly at the …
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Local reporters and editors request City Auditor to investigate city officials’ use of private email accounts
Today, several local reporters and editors, including myself, sent a joint letter to the City Auditor requesting an investigation into city officials’ practices of using private email accounts and other private electronic media to conduct city business. Below is the letter we sent, along with the attachments demonstrating the extent of the issue. The City Auditor reports to the City Council, an arrangement that usually is well-suited to the Council’s oversight responsibilities over the executive branch. In this case, however, the issue implicates several (if not all) City Council members and their staff, as well as the Mayor’s office. Since …
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