Forsyth County District 4 Commissioner Cindy Jones Mills is getting a written reprimand after the county’s ethics panel decided that her “blanket policy” of deleting texts ran afoul of the state Open Records Act and the county’s own retention policy.
The panel made its unanimous decision following an evidentiary hearing in June considering a complaint filed by county resident Jay Guidry. The complaint claimed that Mills erred in deleting texts involving her official role, developers concerned with zoning issues, attorneys and other commissioners.
Mills said in an e-mail that while hearing officers said there was no evidence that she deleted “substantive” messages she was saddened to have had to undergo the process. She said that the county has never adopted a specific policy on text message storage but that in the future, she’ll conduct all official business on her county phone. Mills also said she had never denied deleting messages.
There’s no word on when the written reprimand will be published.
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