Gov. Rick Scott’s original transition e-mails were accidentally deleted, state now says.
Source: Miami Herald
Posted on Thursday, 08.18.11
Gov. Rick Scott’s original transition e-mails were accidentally deleted, state now says.
Deletion of records could be a violation of state law, public records experts say.
By Michael C. Bender
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
TALLAHASSEE -- The email accounts of Rick Scott and most of the governor-elect’s transition team were deleted soon after he took office, potentially erasing public records that state law requires be kept.
Scott’s team acknowledged for the first time this week that the private company providing email service deleted the records as early as mid-January, about the time the Herald/Times first sought transition emails.
Unable to gather records from the server, as is typical to comply with public records requests, Scott officials attempted to recover the governor-elect’s emails from personal accounts of his top-level staff.
But without access to the server, it’s impossible to know how many emails from Scott or his staff were lost between Election Day and the inauguration celebration, a two-month stretch when the team made key hiring moves and shaped the new administration’s agenda.
