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Green says e-mail was no longer available when woman sought it
Beers’ FOIA request ruled too late to work
The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas
Benton County Attorney Robin Green says e-mail records sought from the Bentonville School Board in a Freedom of Information Act request were automatically deleted from the schools’ computers and cannot be turned over to a parent who asked for them.
Green said that, because the records were deleted before they were requested by Melinda Beers of Bentonville, the school district did not violate the FOIA.
In a letter to Beers, Green noted that “the Bentonville School District retains e-mail in a log file on the exchange server for a period of 14 days.
On the fifteenth day, it is deleted from the school district’s system. Further, there are no back-up tapes of the district’s e-mail beyond the fourteen-day window.
Thus, the records you requested of the Bentonville School District did not exist at the time of your request.
“Because the Bentonville School District was under no legal obligation to retain the electronic-mail records you requested, it is my opinion that the Freedom of Information Act was not violated,” Green concluded.
Beers asked for the same e-mail that had been released to media outlets under the FOIA.
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Arkansas News Bureau, the Log Cabin Democrat of Conway, the Pine Bluff Commercial, the Southwest Times Record in Fort Smith, The Jonesboro Sun and The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas
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