Fenty Rescinds Decision About D.C. E-mails

WASHINGTON -- After pressure from District leaders and the media, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty is reversing himself on a major decision.

Supporters of an open government have won a major victory in the District of Columbia: E-mails to and from city officials will be kept indefinitely.

On Monday night, Fenty quietly issued an executive order rescinding a previous order that would have required all government e-mails to be purged after six months.

The mayor's e-mail deletion policy drew fire from members of the media, who regularly regularly request copies of government e-mails and from council members, who were concerned about preserving government records.

Fenty deemed the concerns reasonable and rescinded his policy before it went into effect.

"The Council of the District of Columbia has raised reasonable concerns about our e-mail retention policy and after careful consideration I have decided to return to our previous policy of retaining all District Government e-mails indefinitely," Fenty wrote in a statement to WTOP.

The move comes on the same day council members announced they were considering a legislative remedy to the dispute over e-mail retention.

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