"Council to Discuss Destroying Documents" - that's how the Neosho Daily News prefaced last night's city council meeting. No wonder we drew such a crowd - it must be Ollie North all over again - right? Well, not really.
What was at issue was nothing more than a courtesy notification to the council of the city's intent to dispose of records no longer required "by law" to be retained. But because the city had done a poor job in the past of adhering to a schedule, the action had the appearance of impropriety and cover up. After all, if you haven't destroyed documents for 10 or 20 years, why now?
Record retention is something all cities struggle with. It takes time to organize them. It takes time to box and store them. It takes space to keep them. Luckily, the Missouri statues give cities clear guidance to help keep our records in order while managing the amount of time we are required to keep them. The city has, in turn, adopted a document retention policy that covers how the city handles record retention and disposal - all in accordance with the law.
Ultimately, we elected to dispose only of court and police records in the short run. That kept the peace for now. And honestly, if we've kept them for this long, a few more weeks sure won't hurt. But we can't keep everything for eternity. Laws and policies are in place for a reason. Use them and be consistent.
the whole point is the lack of trust in city hall....even in the most innocent cases, there's no trust...city hall ought to work more on earning some trust than anything else...but most people wouldn't even trust them to do that...the people have been sold down the river too many times
ReplyDeleteWe have to start somewhere to reestablish trust and Richard I am supportive of starting with you. Hopefully we can get you some help with other people we trust.
ReplyDelete