Austin leaders met on Thursday and discussed several controversial issues. The meeting concluded when a private message wound up on Twitter.
District 7 Council Member Leslie Pool’s tweet "So maybe this is the nail in Gallo's coffin” referred to District 10 Council Member Sheri Gallo weighed in on a policy that could impact how Pool’s property near her home is.
She deleted it shortly after and said she apologized to Gallo.
In 2011, an email scandal caused a number of changes in city record policies in Austin.
The new policy that requires correspondence pertaining to city business from personal devices to be surrendered to the Austin City Clerk for record retention purposes as part of the Local Government Records Act.
An ethics attorney believes Pool's Twitter account falls into that category since it contains policy positions.
In a statement, he says it sounds "like she was creating government records that must be retained and are subject to disclosure through a public information request, if that Twitter account was being operated in her official capacity."
On Friday, Pool locked her account. This allows existing followers to see what she posts, but people Pool does not allow to follow her are unable to view her tweets.
Pool has yet to comment on this issue.