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Regular City Council Meeting Monday,March 18,2013 Page 12 and depending on the circumstances, Mr. Gaughan advised that an individual Councilmembers could be subject to a civil penalty if found in violation, rather than the government entity itself, and if three violations occurred, they could be removed from office for a time equal to the amount of time they had served to- date. Mr. Gaughan specifically reviewed e-mails among and between Councilmembers and referenced State Law as well as the City of Roseville Policy on Electronic Communications. In the Roseville Policy, Mr. Gaughan referred to Section 6 (page 2) as the most important provision, and cautioned that often perception was more important than actually reality and often the most difficult area to address. Mr. Gaughan further referenced a great resource used by the City Attorney firm and available to individual Councilmembers at IPAD.State.MN.US, a state agen- cy providing guidance on State Statute and some of the more murky issues. Mayor Roe cautioned that individual Councilmembers should never "reply all" in their e-mail communications, even questions to city departments, but should in- stead send those questions to the attention of the original sender only for his dis- tribution, and responses provided by his office to the entire City Council. Mr. Gaughan concurred, noting that provided for an internal chain of command for City staff. If information was intended by an individual Councilmember for submission and inclusion in an agenda packet, Councilmember McGehee asked how to do so in advance of a packet delivery. Mr. Gaughan advised that this would be fact-specific, and the best practices for any communications was to be overly cautious and to follow the procedure previ- ously addressed, and whether well-meaning or not, to not e-mail the entire City Council,but to go through the City Manager and request that he distribute it to the entire City Council from his office if he feels appropriate. If for some reason, he deems it to be inappropriate, Mr. Gaughan advised that it can then be discussed in open meeting format by the entire body. Responding to the request by Councilmember McGehee as to whether newspaper articles could be forwarded to all, Mr. Gaughan advised that those were a matter of public record, and typically it would be fine. However, Mr. Gaughan noted that this pertained only to the article itself, and not any additional comments in- cluded. Mr. Gaughan reiterated that it was best to err on the side of caution, and use the best practices method of sending everything through the City Manager's office.