AUGUSTA — Recent firings of administrators in Lewiston and Sabattus took many local residents — and council members — by surprise, and inspired legislation aimed at preventing e-mail decision-making among public officials.

The bill sponsored by state Rep. Stacy Dostie, D-Sabattus, got a public hearing before the Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

It would require public bodies that choose to e-mail a majority of members regarding their public work to make that information available to the public before a vote.

“I believe unless controlled, e-mails used by members of public bodies will become the smoking back room of the 21st Century,” Dostie said. “We hear of these types of situations happening all over our state, in Lewiston, Rumford, Gray, Kennebunk and Falmouth, just to name a few.”

Maine’s Freedom of Information Act laws should be updated to match available technology, she said.

State Sen. John Nutting, D-Leeds, a co-sponsor of the measure, said a number of other states also are looking to address the issue.

“It’s a hard subject,” Nutting said. “I haven’t seen two states draft the same solution to it. We want you to know that we’re very open to changing this bill, but it’s trying to get decisions that affect the public, that affect whether or not to spend (public) money, about the hiring or firing of town managers, those are the types of decisions that ought to be made in a public way.”

Representatives of the Maine Press Association and the Maine Heritage Policy Center also testified on behalf of the bill.

“This bill is a very simple and elegant solution to this problem of members of an elected body having e-mail discussions about substantive policy matters outside the public view, and what’s so wonderful about it is just the idea that if those discussions happen over e-mail, they must be disclosed to the public before the meeting at which the vote’s taken,” said Tony Ronzio, president of the MPA and managing editor of the Kennebec Journal.

Jeff Austin of the Maine Municipal Association criticized the bill, though his organization did not vote to formally oppose it.

“In all honesty, my testimony is mostly in the category of opposition,” Austin said. “The goals, spirit and objectives of this bill are completely laudable. I think the idea and intent is to bring more integrity, more transparency and more legitimacy to public functions. As you’ve heard, tying it up into statutory language is difficult.”

State Sen. David Hastings, R-Fryeburg, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said he was concerned the proposal might outlaw many discussions lawmakers in Augusta have, particularly during partisan caucuses where members of the same party discuss issues.

“I wonder about the breadth of this,” he said.

State Sen. Margaret Craven, D-Lewiston, who testified in support of the bill, said that because of the length of the legislative process, caucus discussions likely would not be affected by the measure.

“It still requires a conversation and a debate when we come out of our respective caucuses and people know that and expect that, so part of it is the expectation of the public,” she said. “It is truly a technological age that we have to pay attention to and that I find very worrisome. We have to have open conversation; the taxpayers should know what the council is intending to do.”

The committee is scheduled to publicly discuss the bill again next Thursday.

rmetzler@sunjournal.com

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