Word got to me the other day that a citizen was complaining that the email addresses of city officials were disappearing from the city’s web site.
I decided to have a look for myself.
Checking each of the departments I found that many listed their personnel along with their phone numbers and email addresses. Those that did not were:
City Attorney, phone numbers only. I doubt that the city records phone calls and you cannot use emails (which are subject to open records requests) with this department.
Destination El Paso, phone numbers but no email addresses for staff members listed
Economic Development, a phone number but no staff members listed
Human Services, phone numbers but no email addresses for staff members listed
Information Technology, as you could predict they have pictures of their managers but neither telephone numbers nor email addresses. Don’t call them, they won’t call you.
International Bridges, no staff listed
Libraries, no staff listed
Municipal Clerk, phone numbers but no email addresses for staff members listed
Municipal Courts, no staff listed
Museum of Archeology, no staff listed
Office of Management and Budget, phone numbers but no email addresses for staff members listed
Office of the Comptroller, phone numbers but no email addresses
Parks and Recreation, interesting. Phone numbers but no email addresses listed. Clicking on the staff member’s picture brings up a form that you can use to send in your thoughts (sometimes).
Planning and Inspections, no staff members listed
Police Department, no staff members listed
Public Health, no staff members listed
Purchasing and Strategic Outsourcing, phone numbers but no email addresses
Office of Resilience and Sustainability, staff listed but no direct phone numbers or email addresses
Streets and Maintenance, no staff listed. That explains a lot.
Sun Metro, no staff listed.
Consolidated Tax Office, no staff listed.
Zoo, no staff listed
With no email traffic deniability is easy.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
I have to ask, what city officials was your complainant referring to? I would not really expect most of those on your list to have their email addresses publishing anywhere, since email connected with even public work is supposed to be only for work related communications, and employee email addresses should not be given out. This time, somebody is trying to overthink or overreach themselves.
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I agree with El Paso Speaks and disagree with Mr. Dungan. Many times I have tried to find how to contact someone and there was no way. For example, I used the “contact us” form to provide input to the Environmental Services Animal Code revisions in May and asked to be contacted but never was. Recently City Press Releases and “City News” releases do not provide the staff contact from the department involved, only the City Media Contact. The lack of access and transparency is HUGE!
For the Archaeology Museum staff, click on the specific event listed in the Event section and you will get the staff person’s email and phone. There are only three full time staff at the Archaeology Museum so their main number works for all three: 915-755-4332.
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Before we had email, you could not find a list showing contact info for city employees, so why should that contact info be available now? I will agree with you that it makes no sense to have a “contact us” link on any web site if no one is assigned to monitor that contact. I, too, have been very put off by many businesses and agencies that offer a link for contacting, only to find that no one is there. It is just as maddening to receive a form letter that tells you to do something that has no signature, or contact information for the person who caused it to be sent to you.
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I must also disagree with Mr. Dungan. Email is indeed a relatively new service in human affairs, but it is now the main way to contact city government and leave a record of your request. Note, for example, the complaint about the sculpture on Country Club Road, which was made by email about 11:35 to Ms Niland (no one being at home in city government offices as it was a Friday) and within an hour the city manager had issued an order to rip out the sculpture. No phone calls were involved, nor paper letters. (In my case, I’ve been trying to find out who in Parks and Recreation has responsibility for a specific area and have not been very successful. I had an email for a particular person who’s now left the city, so that no longer provides contact, and phone calls to various people go unanswered. If they are out inspecting parks, that’s understandable, but I’m no closer to an answer.
I am impressed by the amount of work done by Brutus, and thank him for it. Perhaps our new District 1 Rep, who is definitely used to responding to emails, can help us fix this.
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So use snail mail register certified signature required especially to City Attorney’s office or hand carry it to dept and get a signature No deniability then
Sent from my iPhone
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