How are your leaders responding to you?

At a Lexington Town Council workshop Jan. 16, what emails officials use was a hot topic of discussion between the board members, with Council Member Gavin Smith heavily supporting everyone having and using a town-issued email address. 

Smith's two concerns regarding the use of non-official emails included cyber security and document retention. 

“I certainly feel that it is very important for us to have our staff on an email that’s issued by the town,” Smith said, adding that it will look professional as well.

Through regular communication with the town, the Chronicle recognized that Mayor Hazel Livingston was utilizing a personal email address, the only current member of council to do so before her personal address was switched out for a town-issued one after the paper asked about it.

Livingston and town Communications Manager Barnes told the Chronicle that the address not being changed to a town email was an oversight.

Prior to being elected mayor in November, Livingston was listed with her personal email address on the town website when she served as mayor pro-tem.

Barnes told the Chronicle that for town emails, all sent and received emails are retained for FOIA, adding that Microsoft has a compliance manager and the town selected the seven-year retention option.

She added that with personal emails, it’s up to the person using them to ensure they are retaining the required items.

Smith touched on this during the workshop, claiming that if a non-official email is used and exchanges are deleted, this leads to potential risks and issues with retention, adding that personal email platforms typically have a 30-day delete period upon an item moving into trash. He added that this would lead to having to subpoena the email platform in order to try and recover those documents.

When it came to cyber-security, Smith pushed for ensuring that all employees have a town email, adding that this would help protect the town.

According to Scott Slatton, director of advocacy and communications for the state’s Municipal Association, there is no state law regarding government officials using a personal email.

“It's not unusual for elected officials to use a non-official email account, particularly in small towns that don't have an IT department or something like that,” Slatton said. “But no matter what email address they use, if they are using it for official business, then those emails, that they are exchanging text messages for that matter as well, are subject to the Freedom of Information Act.”

He emphasized that as long as the information is dealing with public business the account is subject to FOIA. The Chronicle did not receive confirmation on how emails and documents are retained when a personal email is used for official business, though Slatton added that they do need to comply with the retention requirements.

At this point, most Lexington County municipalities have official city/town email addresses listed for their leaders.

With Livingston’s email being changed to an official town address, all council members and mayors serving Lexington, West Columbia, Irmo, Gilbert, South Congaree, Chapin and Batesburg-Leesville have a municipal email listed as their contact on their respective websites. Lexington, South Congaree, Chapin, Irmo and West Columbia have their phone numbers available as well.

The City of Cayce is the only municipality to have no city-issued emails, with the mayor and council members using various Outlook, Gmail and Yahoo accounts. The city does list individual phone numbers for mayor and council.

Summit and Pelion do not have town websites, while Gaston had no contacts available on their site, Springdale only had council’s phone numbers posted and Swansea’s website only displays Mayor Viola McDaniel’s personal email.