STATE OF NEW YORK EXECUTIVE CHAMBER ‘ALeany 12224 ANDREW M. CUOMO. March 16, 2015 Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins New York State Senate Democratic Conference Leader Legislative Office Building, Room 907 Albany, New York 12247 Re: Uniform New York State Email Retention and FOIL Policy Dear Senate Democratic Conference Leader Cousins, As you know, the subject of email retention and FOIL has come to the forefront in recent weeks. Last week, Governor Cuomo announced that we would bring together representatives from the legislature, the Attorney General and the Comptroller's office to formulate one uniform policy for email retention and FOIL that will apply to all state officials and agencies. While this has been a contentious issue publicly, our administration sees the debate as an opportunity to dramatically increase transparency for all branches of state government. We will convene the first meeting in the next two weeks. Please let me know who your representative will be for this ‘meeting so that we can follow up with that person on additional details. Regarding FOIL, Govemor David Paterson was right when he said, “the hypocrisy of the legislature on this topic is breathtaking,” But given your conference’s vocal leadership on email retention and FOIL, you are in a unique position to lead the entire legislature in finally reversing the long held resistance to the transparency FOIL provides. In this moment, actions speak louder than words. ‘To that end, I vite to ask that the Senate Democratic Conference be the first legislative body to have all of its members voluntarily adopt FOIL beginning today. If there is resistance from the Conference as a whole, I ask those who have signed onto Senator Liz Krueger’s bill who are already on the record on this issue to take initiative and be the first to voluntarily adhere to FOIL, We Work For THE PEOPLE PERFORMANCE * INTEGRITY * PRIDE > eet on oye portJust as we fought to enact marriage equality, the first step was the Senate Democratic Conference unifying, We can pave the way together again now. Look forward to your response. Sincerely, ee CEA TINS Alphonso B, David