What jurisdiction does a public employer have to gain access to any employees' private email account if said email was drafted on a non work computer on non-work time? None without a subpoena.

1 First, you are stupid. Second, if they use private resources to conduct ANY gubmint business, then it belongs to the gubmint. Third, I hope you feel as stupid as you look.

I feel like we're targeting the wrong thing... Every time one of the local reporters writes about this issue it seems like the accusation isn't that electeds are deliberately trying to "hide" things from the public, but that they believe they're discussing political activities and not City/County/Agency business. Perhaps the real problem is just reassessing and clarifying when something is a political activity that cannot be conducted with public-owned resources on paid time or loosening those restrictions in acknowledgment that something like this -- discussing the poltical repeal of a City tax with political consultants -- really should be considered as City business.

But Kshama's Emails.....

Of course they use private e-mails. Only an idiot wouldn't. I'm a more or less nobody who works for city government, and even I switch to private e-mails from time to time.

"Lawsuits should not be the primary tool for making the city follow the law"

When the law is Washinton's Public Records Act, lawsuits are the only tool for forcing public employees to follow the law.

"the law itself should be compelling enough to the mayor and the City Council."

True. But it is not. Thus, it's important to force them to comply with the law, and suing is the route provided by the Public Records Act.

Please sue. If you prevail, the public will gain access to our records, the court will make the city pay your legal expenses from the suit, and city staff will presumably be less likely to violate the law in this manner again.

Another reasons auditors might not investigate is if the litigation is ongoing. Government auditing standards prevent audits of of issues where there are active lawsuits.

Eh, who gives a shit? Are we going to require recording and storage of every conversation? If they have a record of decision detailing how the decision was made and how all laws were followed I'm fine with it. Draft and deliberative documents aren't regularly saved for a reason. I don't need a bunch of extraneous information. Sure it would be funny to see what the Fire department Chief has to say about things but Its not important.

If the state auditor isn't interested how about the state attorney general?

If elected officials communicate with political consultants, those communications should not use public resources. Period.

It’s especially funny to see this continued nonsense over repeal of the EHT. We know perfectly well what happened: presented with ~47,000 signatures and a well-funded repeal campaign, Mayor Durkan promptly marginalized CM Sawant and got the rest of the Council to reverse course. (I guess darkly muttering about how laws may have been violated beats asking why so many citizens quickly signed to repeal a law which had been passed without even a single dissenting vote by our Council.)

@5: “But Kshama's Emails.....”

Yeah, that makes this entire farce pretty clear, doesn’t it? Next you’ll be telling the Stranger what union-represented construction workers told her about the EHT.

@8, Seattle in Alaska asked, "Are we going to require recording and storage of every conversation?"

No. But if our public employees do record and store their on-the-job communications, those records belong to the public and we should not allow our public staff to hide them from us.