Mayor Thomas Menino's office released a statement hours after Secretary of State William Galvin referred the case of top aide Michael Kineavy continuously deleting emails to Attorney General Martha Coakley.

The City of Boston is encouraged by the progress being made in this e-mail inquiry matter and is cooperating fully with the Attorney General's Office in the hopes of coming to a final resolution on this issue quickly.

Over the past four weeks, the City has taken unprecedented action to recover and make available to the public the e-mails which were retrieved from Chief of Policy and Planning Michael Kineavy’s account, including:

* Retaining forensic experts from StoneTurn Group to investigate and advise the City on electronic recovery methods;
* Recovering about 10,000 e-mail messages and posting them on the City’s website;
* Detailing all forensic methods used in its investigation;
* Responding to all questions from the Supervisor and his technical staff.

In addition, the City implemented a sophisticated “journaling” program which will prevent future data loss and instituted new e-mail retention protocols for end-users. The City is drafting a comprehensive long-term e-mail retention policy that addresses the practical concerns of City personnel as to what may be deleted and what must be retained and for what period.

The City looks forward to working with the Supervisor as it, like cities, towns and state offices across the Commonwealth, seeks relevant and updated guidance on electronic retention matters. It is Mayor Menino’s strong wish that the City and state can emerge better equipped to address the electronic retention realities of the twenty-first century.

We are confident that the Attorney General will conclude that there was no intentional violation of the law in this matter, that the City has made extraordinary efforts to recover and make public any deleted e-mails and that the City has taken effective steps to prevent future losses of data.