Orinda Council Will Take A Look At Changes To City's Email Policies

Changes may be coming soon to Orinda's communication policies.

The Orinda City Council voted Tuesday night to direct city staff to review current policies and come back with recommended changes at a public workshop next month.

The issue was in the spotlight due to a controversy last month involving a council member's emails to a developer and concerns the current policies might not meet federal and state laws.

The changes would potentially replace 51 lines of text in Section 11.1 in the City Council Policies and Procedures Manual dealing with email and other communications.

City Manager Janet Keeter had originally proposed deleting those lines and replacing them with the word "reserved" while changes were being considered.

However, on Tuesday night Keeter proposed leaving the language in while the matter is under review.

Keeter said the current policies haven't been updated since 2006 and are outdated.

She added the policies also don't match the practices currently used by city officials.

Leaders of Orinda Watch sent out an email on Tuesday urging their members to attend the council meeting.

They called the original changes with the deletion of the 51 lines a "hasty approach" that didn't make sense.

At the Tuesday night meeting, an Orinda Watch leader said the group doesn't have any objections at this time if the lines aren't deleted and public input is considered before the changes are made.

In early November, Orinda Watch members criticized then-Vice Mayor Sue Severson for emails she wrote to a developer about a proposed Montessori preschool in Orinda Village.

The electronic messages were written on Severson's personal email account, but the communications involved city business and therefore considered public.

The group members obtained the emails through the state's Public Records Act.

At the beginning of Tuesday night's meeting, Severson read a statement apologizing for the incident and any embarrassment it caused the council.

She said she now better understands the city's email procedures and promised a similar situation will not happen again in the future.