Detroit mayor, other city officials, use private email accounts

Renaissance Center, Detroit

Detroit needs transparency probably more than any other city.

From the Detroit Free Press:

City of Detroit officials, including Mayor Mike Duggan, sometimes use private e-mail accounts to conduct the public's business — a practice that concerns open records experts and one that has hounded Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Duggan explained his tolerance for city employees using private e-mail accounts for official business after the Free Press obtained records through the Freedom of Information Act showing Melvin Butch Hollowell, the city's top lawyer, using both his Gmail account and city-issued e-mail account to communicate with a Detroit International Bridge Co. executive during negotiations for the pending Riverside Park land swap.

The city's e-mail policy prohibits workers from sending, receiving or forwarding "confidential or sensitive City of Detroit data and information through non-city of Detroit e-mail accounts." The policy, dated March 2013, specifically lists Gmail as an example of a non-city account.

The city's attorney says that these emails sent on the Gmail server were not confidential or sensitive. Well, if so, then release them.

From my post at Da Tech Guy:

I walked its streets--the tragedy of Detroit.