State law requires public officials to preserve emails, but lawmakers exempted themselves. By Larry Gallup - Jun 3rd, 2021 02:43 pm //end headline wrapper ?> Laptop. (CC0 Public Domain) If you want to see all of the emails your mayor received and sent during the week of March 16-20, 2020, to find communications regarding the coronavirus outbreak, all you have to do is ask. Under state law, the mayor is required to retain these and provide them on request. If you want to see the emails that flowed between a given school district and a former superintendent regarding a school-siting controversy from several years ago, again, these are supposed to be preserved and provided.