Tomorrow's meeting of the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission includes several items that'll be interesting to policy wonks, including an opinion on the rules governing city employees after they leave the city (former Human Services Department sexual assault and domestic violence prevention division director Terri Kimball, whose division was eliminated in a recent reorganization, wants to continue to work with sexually exploited children), a ruling on a case in which a city employee approved illegal financial assistance for her boyfriend and former husband, and potential updates to the city's social media policy, which regulates elected officials' use of things like Twitter and Facebook.

Because it covers relatively uncharted ground, the social media policy is perhaps the most interesting item on the commission's plate.

City law prohibits officials, including the mayor and council members, from campaigning for candidates or ballot measures using official city property or from using city property or time for anything other than official city purposes. The preliminary opinion being issued tomorrow says that city law prohibits things like linking to a campaign web site from an official city newsletter; additionally, council members can't link to their personal Facebook pages from city web sites if those pages advocate for campaigns or ballot measures. Several city council members, including Sally Bagshaw and Tim Burgess, have recently "liked" campaigns on Facebook, including the Washington Bus (Bagshaw).

"Just as it would be improper for the official to include a campaign address in a newsletter, it is improper to make those links available from a page that he or she links to from a City communication."

The city's policy also bars elected officials from deleting comments they disagree with. "When an official’s social media site is prepared using City resources, or linked to from City communications, the official must cede editorial control over the site. If the official deletes critical comments and leaves up supporting comments, then the site loses its value to the public. It becomes a site for making the official look good, which is of value to his or her campaign, but is not of value to the public." The only exceptions are threats and profanity, but officials can't leave up positive comments that include profanity while taking negative comments down. "The official cannot leave up a comment that calls the official “[expletive] awesome,” and remove one calling them a “[expletive] idiot.”