##VIDEO ID:zoy9YgOa64U## council member Jensen present mayor zeran present council member Ron present council member Scott absent all right please R for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to FL the United States of America and to the Republic for which stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice all right so I will go ahead and start us off is he on yet us okay I will go ahead and start us off um I would like to explain kind of how I can hear you go ahead okay so I'd first like to explain kind of how we got here today um and then I will let Joe discuss the legal aspect of it and then we will also be discussing the unethical aspect of it which I have provided you guys some content in the packets today it was first brought to my attention um regarding the forwarding of emails um the summer of 2023 so last year um administrator chansy at the time had seen that there were email strings coming through in responses that were showing how he had forwarded and he had brought it to my attention he was concerned about Personnel data um and it was also at that time that um councilman Scott was having issues with um getting our calendar invites so we called the IT specialist um and actually I provided you the email from our it person telling um councilman Scott that it was because of the forwarding of emails and that it was illegal to do so and that he should not do it and he provided him the resources he provided him um that to let him know that it was against our city policy and he also followed up with a phone call this was in August of 2023 so over a year ago um councilman Scott continued to forward all emails and it was also at that time that administrator chansky came to me and said well I just don't we I don't feel comfortable with having councilman Scott on the Committees for personnel and finance um because we knew that information was being um sent out to the public and that was actually the reason that we brought it to the council to potentially get rid of the Committees um just because we didn't feel like we could trust him with that information um and fast forward um to administrator chansky's resignation um it was actually because of an email that councilman Scott had sent that administrator chansky had to abruptly resign due to um potential leaking of personnel data and other information to the public and so unfortunately the last 2 years it's been a little challenging for for me and I know other members on Council have known that some of this forwarding was going on to not be able to tell the public what was going on um and so I'm I brought I had seen um an article online about a potential candidate that was interested our inim um position those resumés had not been shared with the public yet and it was actually illegal to do so and that is when I first contacted Joe to look into this um given the fact that um I did have to call an apologize to that individual candidate um for his information actually being leaked to the public prior to our meeting and selecting those finalists um so I will go ahead and turn it over to Joe to present the legal aspect of the findings morning everybody can everybody hear me yeah yes yes yes all right thank you there's a little bit of a time delay here so I'll I'll I'll try to make this work uh so the um upon hearing about this potential leak of private data the city it person was asked to um dig into the city account and basically do a data dump on on a bunch of emails uh going to and from Mr Scott and uh it was a lot of a lot of data a lot of emails but within those emails we found um several issues here and uh I provided a a a memo on this but I'll I'll walk through it it's it's apparent from the uh data that's in there that Mr Scott routinely forwards the vast majority of these emails to his personal email account and then from there forwards them to a group of approximately 17 people um I will state that forwarding uh emails from your city account to your personal account is not illegal there's nothing illegal about that at all um and forwarding emails of a public nature to other individuals whomever they may be is also not illegal that's I was say it's it's unusual but it's it's not actually illegal uh but within the emails that were forwarded were several of them that are problematic and um just kind of going down the list here there was um there was an email concerning health issues of of certain um City staff that was forwarded to the number of members of the public health status of public uh employees is private data uh private Personnel data under the data Practices Act there's another one similarly um where there was an email about a particular staff member and an issue with his family and the an email was even ended with the statement this is not for public dissemination that email uh contained private Personnel data as well and was forwarded to his personal address and then forwarded to members of the public and then getting into this whole issue with replacing the city administrator um there ended up being several emails or at least three of them I should say um kind of a rising out of that whole scenario one of them um there was uh an email forwarded um email from mayor Zer and forwarded by m rsme concerning candidates potential candidates uh and included a resume from a person Desiring the job at that point that person was an applicant for the job and under 13.43 of the data Practices Act until a person is chosen to be interview red an applicant data applicants data is private Personnel data so that was Private data uh but that email was forwarded by Mr Scott to 17 members of the public a week later or not even a week later um I had sent an email to M runs Meer concerning some legal advice under the feral labor standards act rising out of employee issue and this administrator position that email was forwarded to uh the council which was appropriate and then member Scott forwarded my email to his personal address and then on to members of the public that's not a DAT a practices issue that is a release of attorney client privilege information um and just so you're aware the privilege belongs to the council as a whole and only the council as a whole can wave the privilege so that was that was a violation of the attorney client privilege by an individual council member and then there was another email sent to the council uh by Miss runs Meer concerning another resume for the position for City administrator uh again that email was forwarded to um or Mr Scot forwarded that email to his personal address that I 17 members of the public and again that's private applicant data under 13.43 so there are one two three four five six instances there uh where there's a problem with this practice of forwarding things to this group five of them concerned um I should say five not six four of them concerned um private Personnel data and one concerned um attorney client privilege data so that's that's basically the the result of that investigation in looking through those um hundreds of emails um or those were those violations and that was the that was the conclusions of my report which I sent to you in writing so I'll leave it at that for now does anybody have any questions I do not have any questions at this time okay um I think then Joe are you going to stay on or it's entirely up to you folks okay um so part of this for Council to cons consider um censur are usually the public reprimands um uh many times when a council agrees to centure kind of council member um they are barred from serving on committees that's about the only thing that um a council can do um so that will be my recommendation at least from the Personnel or finance committee um like I said there were two aspects of this that I think are crucial there's the legal aspect and then the unethical aspect of it um I did provide you guys in this packet the content of the forwards and in the content of the forwards it proves malicious intent and these specific forwards are public data because they're forwarded to me members of the committee of our committees and those emails are actually public data and with the malicious content in these emails it shows that the way that a elected official speaks about other elected officials and our staff gives other people in their minds the right to do the same and we have seen that in the last two years with the cyber bullying with other things that have gone on and from this you can see that there is a stem here from from the people this was forwarded to to the H that was translated to the public um there have been other council members in the state of Minnesota this year that have been censured for unethical behavior um towards staff and council members and as you can see we have emails calling members of council names um spreading things that aren't true um talking badly about our staff um and I think as a council we just cannot allow this um allow this type of behavior um so I think and I'm I'm going to be honest I'm I'm very very upset because today at 11: was the only time that we could meet or councilman Scott could meet and I had my 18we emergency baby or a high-risk baby scan that I had to reschedule now for 3 weeks later and the fact that he was supposed to be here he reassured us he would be here and 10 minutes before the meeting we got an email saying he's not here and I just this is the kind of behavior that we've seen the last couple years from him and I think with us hiring a new city administrator moving on with a new mayor a new Council we need a reset and we also need to let the public know that we C we are going to rebuild the trust back on this Council and I think this is the first step to do that so I am recommending that we do vote um for the center and and and not allow councilman Scott to serve on personnel and finance committee due to the sensitive nature of the content I have some comments um early on in our Council career Madame mayor you had mentioned to me in passing that yourself and administrator chansy um were thinking that council member Scott was cutting and P ing emails and sending them to the public so I was meeting with administrator chansky on another matter and asked him well what's your take on this and what he basically stated was any of the emails that we send out our public data um you know at that time he didn't mention anything about privacy but I think it's you know understood there are certain things that you know you can't send out whether you're in the private sector or Andor the public sector so I believe that time frame and to the best of my recollection was maybe April May 2023 it was early on okay so the concern I've had with you know the city government and how we handle things is um now I had asked you about you know Planning and Zoning that okay as a council Committee Member I'm adding no value um I don't see a reason to sit there for 2 and 1 half hours for cups and variances but Council what you had just stated about one of the reasons you and David got rid of committees that was never presented to council and you know not having the personnel and finance committee I think was a big mistake hindsight be in 2020 but I think looking at some of these dates dating back to August of 2023 this issue should have been dealt with August 2023 the council should have been however it was Handel you know handled a meeting a workshop and also there was no training that if something like this was going on it's no different than when you're looking to terminate an employee you have to work with that employee provides steps that are documented this is what you need to do and I think in this case the city never did that Y and and we didn't know so here's the biggest thing right so David and I both this was unprecedented even for Joe Joel will tell you this is unprecedented from Legally he's never seen this this in this manner so when this was first brought to us um David and I David was new in the role I was new in my role we didn't know how to necessarily handle it we knew it wasn't illegal to forward like we knew that but it was when this email was sent that we thought maybe this would be taken care of so this was in August 31st because then Our IT person sent him an email letting him know you can't do this here are the resources he followed up with a phone call letting him know so we we we don't have access to his emails so we never knew to the extent of what was actually going on right we didn't all we knew though is that David had seen email strings and it created a lack of trust and that's the part that is hard when you're looking at things like this because if you have someone on Council that you can't trust based on this type of information it doesn't always just come out right away and we didn't always know exactly what to what to do about it it wasn't until I saw that data breach a year later that I brought it to Joe cuz I didn't know what to do and as a new council member especially a new mayor the last thing you want to do is try to reprimand one of your other council members cuz then it looks like a personal Vendetta it looks like you know there's all these things that factor into it but it was the lack of trust and it was talking to you about planning and zoning it was a combination of of all those things but we thought potentially now that he knew and had the resources back in August of 2023 that it would stop and actually it got worse and quite honestly the transparency of it like I understand the transparency of it I came in with the same you know thinking but the way you present data to the public matters and when you're presenting data to the public and you're calling us names and you're making insinuating things that aren't true um that is not the way you present data to the public and even though it's not illegal it is surely unethical and that's where that part of it is you know where I struggle in this as well um because this is not just about it being illegal it's about it being unethical again though I think it should have been upon the city I mean here's the handout chapter 26 records management I mean hindsight being 2020 it's easy I get it but for the seriousness of it and I don't condone a council member belittling or speaking badly about a fellow council member you know transparency to the public we're elected to provide data to them but again to me this is like the same situation where we brought in you know three new council members are brought into a termination hearing two weeks into our yeah I mean I understand ridiculous and I think the city had the responsibility to make sure if it's just it's not just one member but we have the responsibility okay make make sure every council member understands what you can do with public data and understand the rules and regulations and sensitive data should not be forwarded so um that it just that it it's it went on so long ago concerns me that the council wasn't made aware and there was no training or or or anything for the council so that everybody was on the same page this is here here it is black and white this is what you can do with the data this is what you can't do with the data and that wasn't done and I agree with you I mean we've had this conversation you know we came into the termination we didn't know what we were doing I mean we've and that's it's a learning process local government's not exactly the most efficient and and nowhere in government is there efficiency um especially with you know people coming in and out every two years um I think again what bothers me as he was told right he was told over a year ago very clearly in an email very clearly on the phone um again he continued to do it and the malicious intent of it is the part that this again we wouldn't be sitting here if it was just forwarding right I I don't know if that was you know it's the unethical aspect and the legal aspect and I think it came to a head after um chansky's departure due to the environment and councilman Scott being a huge part of of that and I think that again the public was not made aware because we didn't have all the information and it is hard to go to the public when you don't have all the information I mean this has been two and a half months that we've since I've brought this to Joe so nothing moves quickly either um but here we are and I think that um again I think that moving forward then now anyone else coming in the future needs to be made aware of what the rules are um but otherwise this is where we sit well and this also brings Delight in my opinion um coming from the private sector I had to go through hours of annual compliance and code of conduct training um things like this the city needs to have that training the employee has to sign off on that training whether it be staff Andor council members and so people are aware here's the rules you need to follow them and again to my knowledge I don't know if staff gets his training I know Council hasn't we are handed a very thick book that looked it was written by a lawyer and city ordinances so again without having that type of training things like this can happen granted this email might have been sent out but also it's from an IT individual it should have been from the administrator um so um again I think it was a lack the city has some responsibility for lack of training and documentation in things like this um it's done all the time in the private sector I don't know what the rules are for cities for this type of training but I think going forward it needs to be there and I think again going back to this he was made aware that this was he shouldn't be doing this and he was given the resources it he was given the link to the league of Minnesota City's records management handbook that you have pulled up right there in that email he was given that link he again followed up a phone conversation doesn't matter if it came from the administrator or the IT person if I was made aware that this was not what I should be doing I would stop but he didn't stop and it only got worse um and that's where I struggle but I 100% agree with you cuz I didn't know either and it wasn't talked about in our training um well it gets back to the HR even having a Personnel committee I agree with it but just because two people are appointed to a Personnel committee they're not HR experts they're not trained they don't have the ability hence why we asked for in the budget last year and it's put in again this year that there is budget for human resources and I hope the council provides direction to look at what's out there as a Consulting service for issues like this again HR would have been very helpful in a situation like this I agree um so yeah I've I've got some comments for me um you know as as Mr Scott I think has ran and as he indicated to Mr langel uh it's in their memo that you know Mr Scott ran on transparency uh we've heard that forwarding emails is not illegal um that is that's that's a privilege right it's a it's a right um any of the information that um majority of the information you shared is is open data uh practice um some of the comments made in some of these emails it goes back to I forget the gentleman's name that came and visit us with but goes back to disagree well um you know it's not personal don't take personal tax don't be personally vending don't be you know making personal remarks um he didn't do that or he he did make some of those comments um what what really the most thing that bothers me the most is when there are specific items uh that was said do not uh um this is not for public deimination uh that concerns me that that was um just bypassed and then also the one that was a client attorney privilege um while some of those could be training issues about the other items those are two things that stand out to me that are the most affecting is when it clearly states um so whether or not he didn't read didn't understand I hope it's just didn't read um and continued the forward demon um that's where my biggest concern is right now so an item in front of us is the potential of the centure um as you indicated is for committees at this time we don't have committees I know we've all received a um Memo from our mayor-elect Rogen Camp it's not for committees as Center can be voted on by Council no but but the Restriction is to remove from committees okay yep my apologies for not to not sit on committe to not sit on committees okay I'm sorry I misunderstood what you said um as of today we don't have those committees um but we have received the memo from uh mayor Rogen camp that committees uh our topic of discussion come January um I think you know and as as a coun so the mayor uh usually assigns who sits on those committees and I think it's up for discussion about who sits where with whom and um at this time I'm not really leaning towards the center one we don't have the Committees to really place on that and come come January could be a whole different situation um but I think just a simple um letter of apology to staff and US council members of of acknowledging this and changing the behavior of making sure to review again again forwarding emails of what can be public nature that's all of our prerogative to do um but you know we really have to be conscientious of what we receive and how it's disseminated to public if we are choosing to forward it what if he I mean so him he was supposed to be here today which so what if he says no what if he says no I'm not writing a letter of apology right and that's where I then what right we can't force him then at this point then I'd probably uh table the potential of the um until a letter of apologies and with the censor we don't have to include the committee assignments we can just vote to censor him it's just literally a public reprimand at at this point I I think a letter of apology in my opinion is fine at this point as Mr uh Jensen alluded um we're in the state of you know HR policies and and trainings and so that that's kind of where I'm sitting right now okay well if he's willing to do that I'm totally fine with that yeah I'm comfortable um if there's some sort of acknowledgement that there was sort of wrong doing um especially to the staff I think um some of those issues you know obviously the personal ones that were forwarded um that is concerning to me as well um especially if it continues um and at this point you know although he has apologized indicated wasn't his int intention to do so um we do not know if if those activities will in fact continue in the future so um that would be sort of my concern um as well um it I agree it's hard to centure him when he wasn't sort of told this more in a more formal manner um and then later continue to do so when we followed up with another investig so you know that would be another way to like check and make sure that these things were not being done would be to like do another um evaluation after some time to see if these activities continued um I I do struggle with the fact of the malice intent against our staff in his emails against residents and against our Council um when a resident would send an email to administrator chansky he would forward that to members of the public and he would make fun of them in that email um and so this is a trust issue for me I I think I think the residents deserve to know that and again it's not illegal like it's it is public data but it is something that I struggle with because you know we have staff that are sending emails to councel and if staff can't trust someone on Council to not you know in a vindictive way share data again it's one thing to forward it's another thing to forward and make fun of forward and name call forward and make accusations that aren't true and that is that is where I struggle the most with this because that is something you learn as a child not to do to people you don't need to be taught to not name call to not try to hurt people to not try to spread lies and rumors and that is the part that I struggle with there is no training for that you learn that as a child and the fact that it is sad that the public won't ever actually see to the full extent of the harm that he's done the last two years on our staff and our counsel on our residents it is and I that was one of the reasons I did not want to run again because I did not feel that this was something that I wanted in my kids life in my life right now especially having young kids my daughter attended one of our Council meetings at one point saw the way he spoke to me again this has been two years of behavior that is not taught that should not be taught by the city so I'm fine with a public apology um honestly I just want it to stop I think that our new city administrator coming in deserves to come come in and be able to trust his Council you all deserve to be able to trust one another and to get stuff done for the city of Breezy Point and again it is unfortunate that he decided he just didn't want to come today when we know that we've all rearranged our schedules for the last two years to make sure he could come to our meetings and he does not come to our meetings and it's just it doesn't feel like he wants to be here and again I wish I would have addressed it sooner C I mean councilman judine like I I do but I don't think at that point I knew how to well that's to my point we weren't given the tools out to um I I'm not in some this is some of this is not you don't need to know this I mean he's in a professional career he probably has his training every year are but you have to do as I understand that he should be told by the city can I finish I understand that he should be told formally by the City but also some of us just know these things you know it's not I don't disagree it doesn't take yeah but a lot to know like I shouldn't forward something and say like oh these staff members have covid and then send it to all my friends like where where in what I don't and you you mean you saw this right no I it just needs to be documented and everybody's given the same training is all I'm saying yes Common Sense this is where I struggle with this this is why administrator chansy part of the reason he resigned in the way that he did and it was never and administrator chansy deserves to have something else come out besides just the resignation that he had because him applying for other jobs he does not get to share exactly what happened and it is unfortunate because there's speculation always when someone leaves a position in that abrupt of a nature and he deserve I mean there's an aspect of it that he deserves backup in what he said cuz he didn't get any backup he deserves that and this is part of that why I wanted this to come out cuz it was very unfair we lost two City administrators because of the same thing and he was a part of that and it was never public and it was unfair and the residents deserve to know that so like I said I am just happy that after two years some of this stuff is actually on the table for residents the transparency is there which is what he wants so here it is and I'm fine with a formal public apology I hope he does it I hope he takes it seriously um and I really really hope that you guys don't have to deal with this moving forward and you guys can have a great start to the new year and just get stuff done for the city that is my whole hope for the city and I hope that this can be put behind us but he does need to come to the table and acknowledge that this is what he's done and that he is genuinely sorry for these things cuz he should be he should be sorry for that for that comment he should be sorry you don't say things like that especially to you you've served this city for eight8 years now well amazing you don't deserve that we're not going to be public yeah it is it is hard I mean it is hard to read responses like that but everybody is entitled to their opinion um however there may be and again I'll I'll go and you know close this out in in stating that a public apology would be an apology to staff members fellow counil members and and those who have been potentially negatively affected um such as the personel information that was forwarded um I think is warranted and again it goes back to our code of ethics and and the potential training but we do that together too right we sat here as a council and we put together our Behavior policy together and we all agreed that we were not going to do this to one another so clearly townsman Jensen us going through training and doing things together clearly that didn't mean anything for him because he went on to do this yes unfortunately um so is that a formal motion uh to yeah I'll make that motion to request a formal letter of apology to staff Council and public I'll second any discussion all those in favor i i i opposed motion carries all right so do I have anyone else have anything else to add before we we can't add anything to a social meeting no I meant just anything else to say apologies okay NOP all right do I have a motion to adjourn so I move second all right any discussion all in favor say I I I opposed motion carries we're adjourned thank you Joel you going