Gov. Mike Easley said Tuesday that he is not convinced that recently released notes jotted by state employees are clear evidence that officials in his office instructed others to destroy public records.

The notes, taken by two public information officers in a May 29 meeting with the governor's press secretary, appear to state that public records requests are increasing and that the spokeswomen should delete e-mail exchanges with the governor's office every day.

Easley, in an interview after a meeting of state officials Tuesday morning, said that is one interpretation of the notes.

Another interpretation, Easley said, is that the public information officers were told to avoid taking up too much space on computer servers and that they should print out e-mail messages that are public records and keep them in a file before deleting them.

The notes from one public information officer read, "Public records request -- increasing -- careful of email -- delete emails to/from gov. office everyday."

Another public information officer wrote, "emails -- more and more public records requests (blogs?) be careful w/emails; delete emails to & from gov office every day."

Easley said the meaning of those notes, released to The News & Observer on Saturday after a public-records request, is unclear.

"When you get cryptic notes, sometimes you don't get all the information, and that's why it's important to get in there and talk to these people," Easley said.

The governor's office has declined to allow interviews with the officials, citing the possibility of a lawsuit.

The Easley administration's handling of e-mail messages became a matter for public debate last month. A fired spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services said the governor's press office routinely instructed state spokesmen to delete e-mail to skirt the public records law. Reuben F. Young, an attorney for Easley, had declared there was no evidence to support the allegations.

Then on Saturday, Easley's office released the handwritten notes taken at meetings between the governor's press secretary and administration information officers.

Easley's office also released hundreds of e-mail messages between the governor's press secretary, Renee Hoffman, and the public information officers who took the notes -- Diana Kees of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and Julia Jarema of the Department of Crime Control and Public Safety.

Server tells its story

Some of those messages came off a server, indicating that they had been deleted from the computers at the public information officers' desks. The News & Observer had asked the Easley administration to keep e-mail retrieved from the personal computers separate, but it did not.

In addition to the two May 29 notes, a third note by Kees refers to a March 20 meeting with the governor's press office in which e-mail was discussed: "Sherri -- keep eye on agencies; limit your e-mails; clean out sent e-mails."

Sherri may refer to Sherri Johnson, the governor's communications director.

Andrew Vanore Jr., a lawyer whom Easley has asked to investigate the handling of e-mail, said it's unclear what the note means. He said Johnson had not led one of those meetings for three years.

The e-mail messages released over the weekend prove that the public information officers didn't follow any order to delete all e-mail, Vanore said.

Vanore said the note-takers seemed to think they were being told to kill all e-mail exchanges with the governor's office. Vanore said he is satisfied that is not what Hoffman intended.

"It very well may be that she said that." Vanore said. "I have spoken with Renee Hoffman. I am convinced that whatever she said at that May 29 meeting, she did not intend to advise any PIO to delete daily any and all e-mails sent to the governor's press office or received from the governor's press office. If that were her intention, then why would she keep e-mails?"

Under state law, it is a misdemeanor to destroy a public record without consent of the state Department of Cultural Resources.

Vanore said this weekend that a third public information officer remembers being told to kill e-mail messages. Vanore has declined to name the person.

No talk of e-mail

He said Tuesday he would reconsider if Hugh Stevens, an attorney for The N&O, would promise not to sue over e-mail messages. Likewise, Hoffman and the two public information officers who took the notes have been instructed not to discuss e-mail issues.

"Any lawyer worth a bucket of spit who is under a threat of lawsuit, if any talking is going to be done, the lawyer is going to do the talking," Vanore said.

Stevens has written a letter on behalf of The N&O to the governor's office stating that the newspaper might take legal action to enforce the state's public records law. Stevens said Tuesday that he is not inclined to make any promises about the newspaper's intentions.

"I certainly don't have any authority from my clients to say that, even if I were inclined to," he said.

Easley has convened a committee to study the executive branch's policies toward e-mail and other forms of electronic communication. One goal of that group is to give public employees clearer guidance on how to handle e-mail.

"People look at e-mails differently than they do paper, and they cannot do that," Easley said.

The committee will hold a public hearing Thursday.