The Town of Wilton’s new municipal email system will be going online this week, changing over to a domain that uses the “.gov” suffix. While all employees will receive new email addresses, only some officials serving on town boards and commissions will also be given individual email accounts. Others will no longer have town email addresses related to their volunteer municipal positions.
“The rollover will begin next week and it will be phased,” Town Administrator Matt Knickerbocker told the Board of Finance on Tuesday, Jan. 14.
The new addresses for individuals will include their name, with a period between first and last names, and will be under the domain @WiltonCT.gov.
With the changeover, the town is reducing the number of email addresses that will be part of the system out of a concern for cost.
“We are spending a little bit more each year storing email,” he said, so the town has chosen to save money by allowing individual email accounts for members of the Board of Finance, the Board of Selectmen, and the Planning and Zoning Commission, while others boards and commissions will only have a group email mailbox.
Details for how that will work remain to be worked out and communicated to people serving on boards and commissions that don’t get individual emails. The members of the Historic Districts and Historic Properties Commission discussed the switch at their recent meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 14, expressing their confusion and concerns. They weren’t sure how they’d be able to access the ‘group’ email and raised the issue of whether their personal emails would be subject to subpoenas or Freedom of Information Act filings.
Knickerbocker said it’s unclear how long the entire process will take, but the migration will begin on Saturday, Jan. 18, and will take several days to complete.
“We will issue press announcements today or tomorrow, as well as a bulletin in the first selectman email newsletter, and on the Town of Wilton social media,” he said.
Knickerbocker noted that any email that is or has been sent to the old “.org” email address will still get forwarded to the new “.gov” email automatically.
“All archives of previous emails will be maintained,” Knickerbocker said, with determinations still being made as to which vendor will be handling the long-term storage.
“Right now, we assume that all email has to be archived forever,” he said, for legal reasons.
As for the Board of Education, the Wilton School District operates under a completely different system through the Wilton Public Schools, and email addresses for school employees and Board of Education members will not be affected.