Broadcast emails and reply-to-all buttons are dangerous things.

I was one of dozens of people to receive an email, and then a recall request, from a City employee yesterday.

I read the joke she had accidentally distributed, decided that it was not a terrible transgression in terms of content or wasted tax-payer time, and honored her request to move on (I did ask her to clarify the passive-voiced statement in the recall email, which said the original had been "sent from my address.")

Not everyone reacted the same way. That's to be expected. The issue of private use of public property is real enough. The police chief followed up with an emailed apology (that one I did not receive).

Habitual misuse of public property to distribute offensive material would be a problem. Misdirecting some B- political humor is just a reminder to mind one's behavior at work.

Comments

[eric]

Clodfelter's email has nothing on this.

[Ed Cone]

Or even Judge Daisy.

That's pretty much my point: this was not a hanging offense, just a reminder to be smart and be careful.

[Andrew Brod]

What I found striking was the anger exhibited by commenters on both the Troublemaker blog and the N&R story... directed toward those reporting this story! Of course it's not a big story, but it was worth reporting. Not surprisingly, many of the commenters missed the point or changed the subject (as some do on this blog). The point wasn't that someone sent a political email from work, but that the time spent sending the email and the equipment used were paid for by taxpayers. No one should be fired for this, but it was news.

[Brandon Burgess]

I think it's interesting that Chief Bellamy chose to apologize publicly about this issue when he has chosen not to do so on more important police department issues.