But at least one government watchdog says it's the proposal that needs trashing.

As written, the draft policy - which the County Council reviewed Tuesday - would give county workers wide discretion to decide which e-mails are government records that must be retained and which ones could be deleted.

One type of e-mail spelled out in the proposed policy deals with general administrative records such as work assignments and interoffice memos. The draft says employees should save these e-mails for "no longer than two years."

Technically, that means those e-mails could be deleted almost immediately, since that would be less than two years.

"It could be," county records manager Terry Ellis conceded Tuesday. "That's why it's a draft. [The wording] definitely could be changed."

Government watchdog Claire Geddes says the proposal is "sad" and "ridiculous." "That doesn't even sound like a policy," she said. "It sounds like a free-for-all. Basically, that is giving everyone carte blanche."

Salt Lake County currently has no policy on how long employees must retain e-mails. Ellis says employees are told to keep those messages they believe are pertinent. "It's a very common-sense approach," she said.

Several county leaders differ in how they keep e-mails.

Deputy Mayor Alan Dayton, for example, says he often deletes messages when his mailbox gets full. District Attorney David Yocom says he keeps e-mails for six months to a year and then hits the "delete" button. And Elly Muth, an aide to Councilman Steve Harmsen, prints most of the e-mails she receives and files them.

State law requires governments to keep documents dealing with the public business, such as memos regarding policy discussions or administrative acts.

In 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune and three other news organizations sued then-Gov. Mike Leavitt after learning he scrapped his e-mails after a few days. The suit was dismissed after Leavitt's office changed the policy and required that public correspondence be saved.

tburr@sltrib.com