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Vendor presentation: CivicPlus urges social-media archiving to meet public-records obligations
Summary
CivicPlus presented a social-media archiving product to the council, explaining that posts, comments and direct messages about public business can be public records; the company recommended an archive to preserve records and reduce legal risk, and quoted a smallest package at about $4,200 per year plus a $500 implementation fee.
Sean, a representative of CivicPlus, told the council that content posted by the city or that discusses public business on social networks is a public record subject to retention and public-records requests. He said agencies that rely on platform-native content are exposed because comments and even posts can be deleted; CivicPlus's service captures and preserves posts, comments and deleted items to support legal defense and records requests.
Why it matters: Council members noted the staff time required to fulfill records requests involving social-media threads and raised concerns about whether comments by members of the global public constitute city records. The CivicPlus representative said many state laws already explicitly treat Internet postings as public records and that automated archiving reduces staff burden and legal exposure.
Cost and next steps: Sean said the smallest CivicPlus archiving package for the city was roughly $4,200 per year with a one-time implementation fee of about $500; he characterized the vendor's social-media archiving as purpose-built for U.S. government records retention. Council members asked for time to review the packet and weigh whether to proceed; no procurement action was taken at the meeting.
Ending: Staff will consider the CivicPlus proposal and respond as part of future records/compliance conversations.
