TBH, elected officials shouldn't be texting during council meetings. 👍

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☕️MORNING BUZZ

—Prior to the pandemic, catching an elected official sending an email or texting during a meeting was a low-level scandal.

Rules for electronic communications were greatly relaxed during the pandemic as the business of governance went virtual.

In-person government meetings have returned for more than two years, but lax monitoring of emails and texting during meetings still persists. It’s not uncommon to see a councilmember tap-tapping away on an electronic device while seated at the dais.

The worry is elected officials could be influenced by outside interests involved in an agenda item. Even worse, elected officials could be polling each other prior to a vote.

This occurred in 2021 during a virtual Hayward City Council meeting in which a councilmember used a private chat feature to ask their colleagues how they intended to vote.

—On Tuesday night, the Dublin City Council is scheduled to approve a resolution that would reiterate that councilmembers should refrain from using electronic communication devices during government meetings, but also makes clear emails and texts pertaining to city business are public records.

“The public has no idea what we’re messaging,” Dublin Councilmember Kashef Qaadri said at a council meeting last month. “What the context of the messaging is, and we owe it to them to make it available to them if they so desire.”

This issue was first brought up in November by Councilmember Jean Josey, just weeks after she lost the Dublin mayors race to Councilmember Sherry Hu.

During the fall campaign, Josey was not shy about questioning Hu’s use of a laptop during council meetings.

Around the same time, Josey made a lengthy request for records involving her colleagues. Josey said she worried litigants currently suing the city may have attempted to influence some councilmembers.

Last month, Mayor Hu said she worried about the policy’s potential for becoming an intrusion on personal privacy, and a blurring of life/work balance. But any personal information requested by the public would be redacted, the city attorney added.

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