July 2, 2009To the City Clerk, City Commissioners, City Attorney and whom else it may concern:I would like to request copies of all Bozeman City Commission public comment documents thatcover the period of June 15, 2009, through July 6, 2009.This request is motivated by a desire to read e-mails received by the city that pertain to the city'snow-repealed policy on using applicants' Internet passwords as part of a pre-employment background check.This request includes e-mailed comments and complaints received prior to the city's repeal of the policy on June 22, 2009, and any e-mails received on the subject since the repeal that have beenmade public record. This request covers both anonymous and named e-mails.I am a freelance journalist, and this request is made as part of news gathering and not for commercial use.At the special City Commission meeting June 29, 2009, Commissioner Becker said:"We received hundreds, many hundreds of e-mails, phone calls and comments from the public from coast to coast within the course of the past 10 days. Those were printed out;they were all handed to us. They were made a matter of public record."I visited the City Clerk's office in person on the morning of July 2, 2009, to obtain copies of thee-mails the commissioner mentioned. The assistant clerk found in a file cabinet two folders of public comments from the previous two weeks but was unsure whether she was allowed to makecopies of them for me because there may have been e-mails in those folders that had informationthat would violate someone's privacy.After attempting a number of times to find out whether she could print them, the assistant clerk and I agreed that she would e-mail me digital copies when she got an answer. Until then, I wasallowed to read the documents in the clerk's office.I did so for about 15 minutes until another woman came down and told the assistant clerk that theCity Attorney, Greg Sullivan, had called in by cell phone to say that those documents were not to be made available to the public in any way for fear of violating someone's privacy. At that time, Istopped looking at the printed e-mails, having counted 32 of them -- 26 pertaining to the policycontroversy -- with about as many left to read.

WRITTEN REQUEST FOR PUBLIC DOCUMENTS

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