On Thursday, Greenwich Selectperson Janet Stone McGuigan requested the board consider a requirement that appointed volunteers sign the social media code of conduct, including appointees to Town boards, commissions and committees.
The Selectmen disagreed about whether the town should mandate that officials appointed to boards, commissions and committees sign the same social media code of conduct as elected officials who are compensated.
Ms Stone McGuigan said since the town had just started a new fiscal year and that the Human Resources Dept was preparing to release its updated employee manual that includes a code of conduct for social media that it was good time to introduce the proposal,
“My colleague Lauren Rabin has on numerous occasions, gently but firmly, cautioned our committee, commission and board members to please think before you post,” Stone McGuigan noted.
“I thought this was an appropriate time to ask all of our town volunteers to sign that same code of conduct,” she said.
Ms Rabin agreed. “We’ve discussed this as we interview people for boards, commissions and committees. We’ve started to ask the interviewees if they would sign it. No one has said no. I think this is a no-brainer.”
“As long as our HR department – Fred, they report to you – can you help facilitate? And, Barbara (Shellenberg), if there is no legal issue, to help facilitate getting it done? It would be hundreds of people.”
In recent months several questionable posts on social media caused a stir.
Just this week a former building committee member used the all 230-member email address to share Facebook posts from a current ex officio building committee member regarding the size of the proposed Central Middle school.
First Selectman Camillo said he’d spoken to the town’s Director of Human Resources Mary Pepe and town attorney Schellenberg about the idea.
“It’s not as easy as we’d like it to be. There’s different types of volunteers. Some are elected. If someone is on the Board of Estimate and Taxation or the Board of Education, and they’ve been elected by the people of Greenwich, I don’t know if we can compel them to sign something like that.”
He noted that the policy for town employees came about within the last four years after an incident in which someone posted something they shouldn’t have.
“And since then we’ve seen it a couple of times. So we wanted to get some policy in place for the town employees,” he said. “We want to stay ahead of these things and try and prevent some things from happening, and if somebody violates it, they violated it, but knowingly went into it and knew what the policy is.”
“There are questions about what we can and can’t do,” Camillo said.
“We can look into it,” Schellenberg said.
Ms Rabin clarified that the idea was only to compel the volunteers the Selectmen and RTM appoint to boards, commissions and committees.
“We, as elected officials, we are paid, we have to do it,” Rabin said. “I understand that not all elected officials are compensated. I wouldn’t put them in the same category.”
She said she’d like volunteers on the Shellfish Commission and the P&Z Commission, for example, to agree to a code of conduct.
Camillo said not everyone agreed on what is an inappropriate post.
“What’s offensive to you may not be that offensive to me. How do we craft a policy where someone will say, ‘What’s wrong with what I posted?’ or ‘I just reposted something.’ You don’t want to get to a point where someone reposts an All in the Family, Archie Bunker, which is funny stuff, but by today’s standard?”
“I think our policy is clear, what is considered inappropriate,” Rabin said.
“Things change though. What’s appropriate now may not be appropriate in 10 years,” Camillo said.
“That’s already true of our employees,” Stone McGuigan said. “The point is to make people think, and when someone signs something, you have to think about what you’re doing. We’re spelling it out very clearly.”
She said while the intent of her request was not to deal with elected officials, but it would behoove them to do it as well.
“We’re just talking about volunteers who would come under the BOS that we appoint,” she added.
She said elected officials were different. “They are already accountable to the public. This is just one more way of showing your accountability.”
Camillo suggested Schellenberg consult with Connecticut Conference of Municipalities. “Maybe there is a blueprint.”
“I completely concur with my colleague, Lauren Rabin, that it is clear. What we currently sign is clear,” Stone McGuigan said.
“I worry going forward. With the best intentions – what was funny 30 years ago, people look at it and say it’s offensive….Times change. Who knows, what today we laugh at…I’m not a fan of that, but it’s just reality.”
No vote was taken. The selectmen agreed the legal department will consult with CCM to see what other towns do, and then make a recommendation on how to move forward.
Editor’s note: Ms Stone McGuigan corrected her statement about Town doesn’t have a social media code of conduct per se but rather has a mandatory training.