Curry votes to transition to county-issued email addresses

CLOVIS — After voting down a transition to county-issued email addresses in their Jan. 12 meeting, the Curry County Commission reversed course.

By a 4-1 vote, with Chairman Robert Thornton voting a begrudged, “Yes,” the commission agreed to have currycounty.org email addresses tied to a county-issued tablet or laptop that would only be used for county business.

Commissioner Chet Spear, who was part of a 3-2 vote against county email addresses last meeting, brought the issue back to the table because he was made aware of the use of an independent device.

The change has been recommended by county administration and County Attorney Steve Doerr, who noted having county-issued emails made it simpler to abide by records requests through the Inspection of Public Records Act or if discovery is ordered in a lawsuit.

County Manager Lance Pyle and Doerr said the county IT department would have access to the email archives at all times, but any search would be logged in the system and commissioners would be made aware of such searches in advance whenever possible.

“The system will track that,” Pyle said. “If (IT Director Todd Ulses) searched for … House Bill 3 … It's going to log that he searched for House Bill 3 at 10:40 a.m.”

Commissioner Bobby Sandoval said he wasn’t particularly tech-savvy and most of his constituents contact him with a phone call. But he spoke with other commissioners around the state and heard positive feedback about a county-issued email address. Sandoval feared he would accidentally delete something and it would create an insinuation he was trying to hide it.

Commissioner Seth Martin, who cast the dissenting vote, said he prefers the IT department to stay out of his business, but understands the need for ease of access when public records requests are made.

“I'd like to remind you anything you do in your elected capacity is public business,” Doerr told Martin. “It's a public record.”

Doerr recommended once the county puts in the county-issued addresses, commissioners should simply forward any correspondence they get on prior email accounts to the county account, and respond from there. Ulses said as far as creating filters to forward emails or migrating prior emails to the new account for archiving purposes, the commissioners who created email accounts specifically for county business would have an easier transition than the ones who used an email address for personal and county use. Both Martin and Thornton said they created GMail accounts specifically for commission business.