COEUR d'ALENE - Kootenai County commissioners recently adopted a new social media policy, which caused a bit of a stir on a local social media site Thursday.

"Kootenai County respects the right of employees to write blogs and use social networking sites and does not want to discourage employees who use these media for personal interest and affiliations or other lawful purposes," the policy states. "This policy is not intended to limit or infringe upon employees' protected legal rights."

Commissioner Todd Tondee said that is the gist of the new policy that was adopted last month as part of a sweeping overhaul of the county's personnel polices.

Tondee said the county began updating its personnel polices about two years ago, but the effort stalled under the previous board of commissioners. After commissioners Jai Nelson and Dan Green were elected, the board decided to revive the effort and that led to new employment policies that were adopted a few months ago.

"When we were going through the process, we noticed that we didn't have a couple of things covered," Tondee said. "So we developed policies in those areas and adopted them last month."

He said Commissioner Nelson noticed the lack of a social media policy because she had one at her last place of employment.

"Jai said Sacred Heart (Hospital) had one when she was there," Tondee said. "We had some discussions about that and discovered that the sheriff's office had a policy, so we adapted that to fit our needs."

Nelson did not respond to requests for an interview on Thursday.

Tondee said commissioners have no intent to "silence" county employees, but they needed a way to deal with employees who may use their position within the county to cause harm online.

"All the elected officials in the county had input on these," he added. "And it has gone through a full legal review."

On Thursday, the new policy was discussed at length on the Huckleberries online blog, which is a social media site owned by the Spokesman Review. (Read policy number 505 online at: http://www.kcgov.us/departments/personnel/files/PolicyManual.pdf)

One commentor, Tim Herzog, who ran for Tondee's commission seat in 2008 and 2012, said the policies are too restrictive.

"What I said on the blog is that employees are at-will employees and they can be fired for no reason at all, and this just another way to intimidate them," he said in a phone interview.

In the course of his campaigns, Herzog said, he has heard from some county employees that have specifically been told not to talk to him. However, he wasn't at liberty to name those people.

Herzog said the new policy appears to be an attempt to silence employees who are simply looking for an outlet to vent.

"I can tell you that I know for a fact certain county employees used to post under false names, but they aren't posting anymore because they fear that someone is trying figure out who they are," he said.

Other commentors, who are mostly anonymous, speculated that the policy appears to be a deterrent for whistle blowers, and makes it easier for commissioners and other elected officials to conduct a "witch hunt" if an employee tips off the social media community to embarrassing information.

Tondee, who had not read the online discussion, said any speculation to the motives of the commissioners' action is unfounded.

"There is no intention of preventing any whistle blowing. In fact, we have a specific policy to protect whistle blowers," he said, adding the policy was simply designed to give county employees some guidance on how they are expected conduct themselves in online discussions concerning the county.