Bainbridge Island city officials announced Tuesday they would no longer post messages on Facebook and other social media outlets.

The move follows emerging criticism of the practice as well as a recent briefing at a city council meeting where City Attorney Lisa Marshall told the council that messages on Facebook, Twitter and other social media forums could be considered public records if the posts dealt with city business.

Marshall also noted that emails from private computers can also be public records.

“Emails discussing city business sent from private computers … from private emails addresses, do constitute public records,” Marshall said.

The city of Bainbridge Island is currently being sued in Kitsap County Superior Court for withholding emails about city business that were sent and received from the private email accounts of councilmen Steve Bonkowski and David Ward. A judge ruled in May that the city violated the state Public Records Act after Bonkowski and Ward deleted emails from their personal accounts that were public records, and the city was ordered last month to pay attorney fees of $109,345 to Dan Mallove, the lawyer for the two Bainbridge residents who filed the lawsuit against the city. A hearing on financial penalties against the city for violating the Public Records Act is scheduled for later this month.

At the council’s last meeting in November, Marshall led a training session on the state’s public records and meetings laws and warned council members to preserve emails that had been sent to their personal email accounts.

“Even if you are not requested to respond to an email, even if there is nothing for you to do with that email, it’s still a record and shouldn’t be deleted,” she said.

At that meeting, former councilwoman Debbi Lester — who was also named in the lawsuit for withholding public records but was dropped from the court case after she left office at the end of 2013 — said the city should think about messages that city officials have been posting on online forums. It was an area that needed cleaning up, she said.

Some city officials have been commenting on the handful of Bainbridge Island-related Facebook pages, and City Manager Doug Schulze has posted frequent items to correct misinformation that is put online about city hall.

In a letter to the council Monday, Lester said city officials’ comments on Facebook were public records and should be treated as such, and should be stored on the city’s server and posted on the city’s Facebook page.

She also asked if city employees should be using Facebook during city business hours, and wondered if the city manager or employes should be “participating in public debate before a topic has been thoroughly

reviewed” by the city council or city commissions.

“There is a perception of administration/staff entering into the policy debate,” Lester wrote in her letter to the council.

Schulze announced the city’s change in direction in a post Tuesday on the Bainbridge Island Community Forum page on Facebook, and said it had been prompted by concerns that had been raised.

“I am very disappointed to be forced to discontinue participating in this forum, but due to a recent citizen concern find it necessary,” Schulze wrote.

“Unfortunately, this is going to mean that information about city issues, meetings and events will no longer be provided through this forum or any of the other Bainbridge Island forums. We will focus all of our communication efforts on the city website, City Manager’s Report, Nixle, Twitter and the city Facebook page,” he wrote.

“I do plan to continue as a member of the [Bainbridge Island Community Forum] group in a private capacity, but will not comment or post on anything related to the city of Bainbridge Island,” Schulze added.

City spokeswoman Kellie Stickney said in a Facebook message Tuesday the change was a disappointment and would limit the city’s ability to share information with interested islanders.

“Unfortunately, due to a concern from an Island resident, city staff, including myself and City Manager Doug Schulze, will no longer be posting in any Bainbridge Island Facebook groups in our official capacity. We are very disappointed in this turn of events, and are concerned that this will impact the city’s ability to keep residents informed of upcoming opportunities for public engagement, and decrease our ability to be responsive to the needs of Bainbridge Island residents,” Stickney wrote.

Stickney said the change would be implemented immediately.

She said part of the reason for the change was also the time-consuming burden of collecting posts that could be public records.

Stickney said some of the suggestions offered by people who want the city to maintain its presence in Facebook forums — such as creating multiple accounts for officials to use, one private, one official — was unworkable due to Facebook’s policies that limit an individual to one personal account.

Instead, she said residents could use other ways to correspond with city officials, which include the “Community Voice” option on the city’s website.

“We really want to encourage the community to use other avenues we have for communication,” Stickney said.