Polis administration health officials are trashing their email communication related to COVID-19 despite requests by the state archives to preserve all documents in order to accurately record how Colorado is responding to the pandemic.
So much for all that transparency Gov. Polis promised voters.
Most emails were deleted after 90 days by employees at the Public Health and Environment Department.
Polis is deleting all his emails every 30 days.
That’s according to the Denver Post, which discovered the purge when they tried to obtain emails sent and received by state epidemiologist Dr. Rachel Herlihy.
It’s important to keep records related to the state’s response to COVID-19 so that journalists can report on a crisis impacting Coloradans’ health and safety, said Jeff Roberts, executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition.
“I’m disappointed because we asked for this,” Roberts said of the health department’s deletion of emails related to its coronavirus response. “Just because they may not think the messages are important to keep, those are government records and they are the public’s records.”
In their typical arrogant manner, Polis spokesflack Conor Cahill said the governor is a big fan of transparency so they have a process to save “final versions” of documents like press releases, which duh, are freaking public documents created and sent to the media.
“We also have processes in place so that documents, including emails, that need to be retained for pending CORA requests, litigation holds, other state law, etc., are retained.”
What a load of crap.
Obviously, Polis’s crystal ball process to see into the future and know what documents to keep for future document requests and litigation is a complete failure.
The question now, are they hiding something, and if so, what?
The data landscape of the COVID crisis is getting so ridiculously inconsistent it’s no wonder the public is suspicious.
Polis, state, and local health officials warn us one day to be extra cautious because the apple rate is high, but the next day it’s the orange crop that’s dangerous, and if we don’t watch our peaches we’ll be up to our arses in bananas by Christmas.
We’re stunned the rest of the media is just twiddling their thumbs and not demanding the emails be recovered, or suing the state to stop Polis from dumping his emails every 30 days.