Officials’ e-mail subject to public disclosure

New communications technologies can disconnect reporters from the municipalities on their beats, depriving readers of information they have a right to see or hear.

The advent of e-mail has left Bangor Daily News reporters off the list-serve of town officials in Bar Harbor, who find the Internet a convenient and private way to discuss town business.

From late 2003 to early 2004, BDN reporter Liz Chapman and Dana Reed, town manager in Bar Harbor, conducted a lively debate over what Chapman contended was Reed’s use of e-mail to conduct business with town councilors.

Chapman maintained that although no votes were taken during the computer correspondence, the public was effectively offline for what should have been open discussions. The e-mails, she believed, were leading to de facto decisions.

They also were seen as a possible reason for public meetings that suddenly were taking less time, and the absence of open controversy over issues that previously had provoked intense debate and exposed divisions among councilors.

Another casualty of the e-mail discussion process, Chapman said, was the once lively public discussion and audience interaction with councilors. It virtually disappeared in the abbreviated meetings and the atmosphere of efficient dispatch of business.

Questioned by Chapman, Reed admitted to the e-mail correspondence, but denied deciding issues outside of public view. Chapman’s request for access to the e-mails was flatly rejected. The town argued that the messages included privileged information such as personnel-related matters.

Screening and redacting the content, Reed contended, would require time and expense for the town. Fruitless discussions ensued between Chapman and Reed, and a written e-mail request for access was rejected, before Chapman turned to BDN attorney Bernard Kubetz.

Kubetz spoke with the town attorney and drafted a letter to Reed, with Chapman’s assistance, suggesting that Bar Harbor officials send separate personnel and public-information e-mails. Reed rejected the proposal, but after several weeks of negotiation agreed to a system in which the BDN covered the expenses of town time spent redacting information and providing paper copies of e-mails.

The system worked until recently, when Chapman returned to the Sun Journal in Lewiston. The town contended its agreement applied only to Chapman, not the new beat reporter, Bill Trotter.

“Obviously, Liz was acting in her capacity as an employee of the BDN. Trotter is acting similarly,” Kubetz said. Any effort by the town to create “a separate policy for each reporter from the same newspaper,” said Kubetz, “would only compound the problem” for the town with the BDN and its request for access to public-information e-mails.

Mark Woodward is the Bangor Daily News executive editor.