How long should emails be kept by elected officials in order to be responsive to public information requests? Recently I did a public information request asking for the retention policy and received a document that Somervell County Commissioners Court voted on last year. Rather than Somervell County having a written individual retention record written specifically by the county, they voted to folllow the Texas State Library and Archives Commission retention policies.  Because the site, to me, isn't entirely friendly to read, I called in to ask the TSLAC how long a citizen should expect a local elected official to keep email. I was told that if an email involves public business or financial information, that email should be retained for 2 years. If this is the case, then certainly all elected officials should be complying with that policy