Internet and Email Policy adopted
Town will delete e-mails
New Gloucester - The Board of Selectmen adopted an Internet and Electronic Mail Policy for the Town of New Gloucester. The following is excerpted from that three page document:
"Email messages have been found to be public records and may be subject to the right-to-know laws, depending on their content."
"Generally, email messages are intended to be temporary communications that are non-vital and may be discarded routinely. However, depending on the content of the email message, it may be considered a more formal record and should be retained pursuant to a department's record retention schedules. As such, these email messages are similar to printed communication and should be written with the same care. Each department head is responsible for establishing and maintaining department retention schedules for the information communicated through the email system."
"Note that email has been classified as "public" documents, i.e. available to the media. Keep that in mind when you create or store email. Employees should delete email messages as soon as possible after reading."