TO THE EDITOR:

After winning election for an Orrock Township Supervisor seat in November 2022 and starting her role in Jan 2023, Anne Felber discovered the majority of emails from her predecessor’s account had been deleted, a violation of the MN data retention statute. This was brought to the former Supervisor and the Orrock Clerk and she was told they were gone. Unfortunately, intentional deletion of data (MN statute 138.225) is a criminal misdemeanor in the state of MN. Every email to/from township leadership is subject to retention, specifically 36 months to the MN Historical Society, in case email conversations and equally shared information between leadership turns into policy. With hot topics like snow plowing, pay, road maintenance and a contested $1M new town hall building - data retention of both internal and external Clerk/Supervisor/Treasurer communication is crucial to transparency to this community as all have taxpayer implications. Luckily, emails don’t just disappear, they are backed up and can be restored - that includes emails to the former Supervisor from other Supervisors and from the former Supervisor to other Supervisors - they are all subject to the same statute. I’m assuming this was a clerical oversight and know firsthand that technically, these emails can be quickly restored. This is a formal request to the Clerk and/or Supervisor Hassett to restore and provide, in chronological order, every email during Mr. Hassett’s entire term(s) to the email account of his successor, Supervisor Felber, by the end of March 2023.

Charles Schmidt

Orrock Twp.