It’s Time to Fix the Town Website

It’s now been two years since I was fired by the Longmeadow Select Board as the “Town Webmaster” after 13 years of volunteer service.  This termination spearheaded by former SB member Rob Aseltine and supported by former SB members Christine Swanson and Bobby Barkett precipitated a significant deterioration of the usefulness of the “official” town website- www.Longmeadow.org during the past two years.  In today’s information age Longmeadow deserves better… it’s time to fix the town website.

At the July 2 meeting earlier this month Paul Santaniello, the new SB chairman, included the town website as a meeting agenda item.  Mr. Santaniello provided some background information for new SB members (Ms. Angelides, Mr. Barowsky and Mr. Foster) and highlighted that two years ago the town website was fully functional, user friendly and updated on a regular basis. Now it is much less functional and less informative. 

Mr. Santaniello who was a member of the Select Board at the time and who voted against my termination, stated at this July 2 meeting that the firing was directly related to a blog post (Mr. Moran’s personal blog/ opinion) that was connected via a link from the town website.  Rather than simply removing the “problem” link, it was decided by the majority of the SB members to fire the “volunteer” webmaster.

Thank you Paul for setting the record straight once again.  See the short LCTV video clip below for this part of the SB meeting discussion.

After two years of various failed attempts by the SB to create an effective website, there is now a discussion to hire a college student, an intern or an outside company to resolve the day-to-day management void as well as website design deficiencies.  The current approach using a combination of town department heads and other town employees to provide timely updates has not worked very well.  Kevin Warenda, Longmeadow’s IT Director has publicly stated that he sees no role for his department in supporting the day-to-day operations and the regular updating of the website.   From my experience it is likely to cost the town at least $20-30K/year to redesign and maintain an effective website.  In the past I have written a number of Buzz blog posts related to this subject.

Watch the LCTV video below to view the full SB discussion that took place on July 2.  You will find that it was very similar to others that have taken place over the past two years on this subject with SB members not knowing how to resolve the problem.

Since my firing as town webmaster, I have continued to develop the connections between town government, schools, Storrs Library, town residents, organizations and local businesses by providing new and improved Internet resources.  These include:

www.LongmeadowMA.org – A relatively new website (2010) for town residents with no business advertising.  Free website design and maintenance are offered to many town organizations including Longmeadow Historical Society, Longmeadow Newcomers Club, Longmeadow Gardeners on the Green, etc.

www.LongmeadowBiz.com – Connects local businesses and town residents. Business advertising and derived income from this website supports all LongmeadowBiz enterprises.

www.Facebook.com/LongmeadowBiz - a Facebook fan page for the town of Longmeadow where people can share information, opinions and ideas.  This Facebook fan page is constantly monitored for abusive behavior, but that has not been a problem.  The towns of Enfield, CT and East Longmeadow, MA effectively used their Facebook presence for two-way communication with town residents during the storm crisis last October.  Longmeadow should have a Facebook page for such emergencies.

People who are familiar with my efforts as the Town Webmaster (1997 - 2010) as well as my LongmeadowBiz, LLC business activities (2004 - present) know that I have always used LongmeadowBiz web resources for the benefit of our town.  Below is a LCTV video (2011) interview that provides an overview of how it all comes together.

While I have no interest in returning to my role as the “town webmaster” I would like to propose that the Select Board consider integrating the existing LongmeadowBiz Internet resources into the town website.

Below is a proposed change in appearance for the town website to allow easy navigation by town residents.

[click image to enlarge]

• Addition of these visible links will allow town residents to get quick access to the Longmeadow Community Bulletin Board and a wealth of other timely information and services that do not currently exist (or are not easily found) on the official town website.
• Posting of board/ committee meeting minutes and other less timely documents to www.Longmeadow.org should continue as currently managed by town employees.
  
• This proposal separates the Select Board from the difficult and time consuming task of making individual decisions regarding whether or not links to local organizations and other external resources can be added to the town website.  These links will be reviewed and managed by LongmeadowBiz.
  
• If at some future time, the Select Board decides for some reason to terminate this proposed relationship with LongmeadowBiz, it can be done very easily by simply removing the links at the top of the homepage.
  
• These additional Internet resources would be provided to town residents at no additional cost to the town.

I am planning to present this proposal during the “visitor comments” period at an upcoming SB meeting and hope to receive a positive response.

Where is the new Longmeadow website?

At the SB meeting last November 1 Rob Aseltine announced that the Town Manager's Website Task Force had decided to use the WordPress "open source" Content Management System (CMS) platform for the town's revamped website. He also announced that the new Longmeadow.org website would be at least partially operational by January 1 with some additional components being rolled out at a later date. At the SB meeting on February 7, he announced a 2-3 month delay because more time was needed to transfer the archived meeting minutes to the new website format.

A recent look back at the July 26 meeting last year during which the Longmeadow Select Board discussed the forward plan for development of a new town website was pretty interesting.  Mr. Barkett called it right.... he didn't want the plan to fall into the category of "analysis- paralysis".  Below is a short video clip from this meeting with Mr. Barkett's insightful remarks...



At the SB meeting this week there was a short discussion of the need to create a website masthead that was more reflective of Longmeadow.  I'm not surprised that the new "free" Wordpress website "right out of the box" will require some modifications.  A typical theme for Word Press is shown below...

After a little Google searching (I simply searched for "Longmeadow + fiscal year + 2011"- click here to view results) I was able to find the new Longmeadow.org website and was surprised to see a masthead almost identical to the WordPress theme shown above.

I'm sure that there are creative people in Longmeadow who can provide a more imaginative masthead for the new improved Longmeadow website and which would be more reflective of our town.  Perhaps the Select Board should sponsor a contest!

Mr. Barkett had it right... we don't need "analysis-paralysis".... we need a functioning town website with updated information.  It shouldn't be that difficult!

A good start for Longmeadow's town website

but there is still a long way to go!

There are now announcements from Town Hall being posted on the town website- www.Longmeadow.org. A new notice was also posted today that the Town Manager’s Website TaskForce will asking town residents how to improve the website and what other electronic services should be offered.

Now that I know that there are some people at Town Hall reading the Buzz blog and reacting to at least some of my comments, I would like to offer the following suggestions….

1. Keep the town announcements and event calendar timely and up-to-date.
   Town residents want to know about street repaving work and other project work “before” it begins. There is currently some street reconstruction work going on this week on Longfellow Street. I know that Center School sent out letters to parents but not all of us have kids attending Center School so a town wide announcement would have been useful.
   
   The new agenda “tab” on the Calendar solves the "readability" problem that I mentioned in my last post.... thanks!
   
   
2. Meeting minutes…. I attended last week’s School Building Committee meeting and posted some notes here on the Buzz. At this meeting on Sept 15 (8 days ago) there were 4 sets of minutes approved dating back to May. Why are they not posted on the School Building Department website?
   
   How about Select Board meeting minutes? There is only one new set of minutes posted for the combined School Committee/ SB meeting on September 20, but where are all of the other ones for meetings this past summer?
   
   How about meeting minutes for all of the other boards/ committees/ commissions?
   
   The new Massachusetts Open Meeting Law (Section 22 (c), effective July 1) states: “Minutes of all open sessions shall be created and approved in a timely manner. The minutes of an open session, if they exist and whether approved or in draft form, shall be made available upon request by any person within 10 days.
   
   The new www.Longmeadow.org website should provide town residents with easy access to all meeting minutes. The Town Manager and “webmaster” should actively solicit this information. Posting of meeting minutes 2-6 months after the meeting has occurred usually provides information with very little worthwhile value.
   
   Perhaps “draft” meeting minutes could be posted (and labeled as DRAFT) as soon as they are available possibly within days of a meeting.  (A former Longmeadow School Superintendent (Tom McGarry) posted his meeting "notes" on the town website within a week of the meeting.) This would permit town residents to better understand what is happening and attend the next meeting or write email if necessary to provide their comments. This would be a large step forward in communicating with town residents.
   
   
3. There is an organization called Common Cause of Massachusetts which actively promotes better e-Government. Each year they evaluate (and re-evaluate) official city and town government websites in Massachusetts using an established set of criteria and recognize cities and towns in Massachusetts accordingly for their efforts. Through my work as town webmaster Longmeadow has received this e-Government award for the past three years. There is a “with distinction” award designation which Longmeadow has not received because some documents have been missing from the website. Receiving the e-Government “with distinction” award should be a goal of the new website team.
   
   If Longmeadow were being evaluated today by Common Cause, it is likely that Longmeadow’s town website would not receive the e-
   Government award.
   


4. There was a strong interest by three members of the Select Board (Aseltine-Barkett-Swanson) to take control of the website and convert it to an “official town government” website. That makes a lot of sense since significant taxpayer money will now be used to support the website.  Providing technical support for community organizations including website development and other needs should be considered outside the scope of the website.
   
   LongmeadowBiz, LLC has already made an offer to provide Storrs Library with free website support but it has been refused.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes the Website Taskforce to make their final recommendations to the Select Board.  Hopefully, in the meantime there will be continued effort to keep the website up to date.  Town residents have been accustomed to better service.

What’s happened to communication in Longmeadow?

The Longmeadow town website- http://www.longmeadow.org/  once acclaimed for its outstanding delivery of information to town residents has seen a significant deterioration during the past two months. Anyone who has followed the “insubordinate volunteer” incident here on the Buzz blog or in the local newspapers is aware of the town website situation. The town website has now been under renovation for almost two months and Select Board has not as yet developed a plan to provide town residents with an effective website and access to up-to-date information. At last week’s Select Board meeting it was reported that the Town Manager’s Website Task Force had met for the first time but no update was presented.

There have been efforts to post announcements for town residents on the town website as shown below in a snapshot from earlier today.

However, three of the four notices currently posted are out of date. The new "town calendar” on the website homepage provides a somewhat better attempt with posting of town govt meeting dates but the accompanying agendas are sometimes difficult to view completely or print.  I rate this effort at a C- and is not what town residents have come to expect from our town website.

I have attempted to continue posting town government announcements on the Longmeadow Community Bulletin Board and Town Calendar as I had been doing for the past five years. Both of these free web based resources can be found on LongmeadowBiz.com.  Some time ago, I made a simple request to the Town Manager and the various department heads that LongmeadowBiz be added as a media outlet on the distribution lists for town press releases. That never happened and last week I found out why.

Rob Aseltine, Longmeadow Select Board chairman, had unilaterally directed  Town Manager Robin Crosbie to block any press releases or event information from being sent to LongmeadowBiz.  This was done without formal discussion with the other members of the Select Board.

In addition, all visible links to these free town resources (Bulletin Board and Town Calendar) have been removed from the town website which has caused further frustration for town residents in their search for the latest news.

There are upcoming flu shot clinics planned by the Board of Health, Maple Road is being repaved soon, high school building project construction will begin, etc…. How are town residents going to be informed?

This continued retribution by Mr. Aseltine against me for my blog posts in early June regarding the School Building project has clearly resulted in poorer communication between the town and its residents.  His effort is obviously directed toward my LongmeadowBiz, LLC enterprise and he is doing whatever he can through his position as an elected town official to disable its effectiveness and popularity.

If you are concerned by the actions of our Select Board chairman, please send an email to him with your comments. His email address is: raseltine@longmeadow.org  . Be sure to copy in the other members of the Select Board and the Town Manager. Their email addresses are shown below:

rbarkett@longmeadow.org , cswanson@longmeadow.org , psantaniello@longmeadow.org  and mgold@longmeadow.org .

Be sure to visit the Longmeadow Community Bulletin Board and the Town Calendar on LongmeadowBiz.com to stay connected with what is going on in Longmeadow. I will try my best to make available to Longmeadow residents all town government and other related information.

Cost of Technology- Part II

The Town of Longmeadow has now been without a useful website to share information with town residents for over 5 weeks. Although a "new" town calendar has been added to the homepage of http://www.longmeadow.org/ , not much new information has been added to the website and it is still "Under Renovation".   Town residents can only guess what has been happening at the School Building Committee meetings since meeting minutes have not been posted since mid-March and they are not televised by LCTV.

Earlier in May a proposal was submitted to the town by a company called Virtual Town Hall (VTH) which provides website solutions.  VTH provides support and services for over 300 counties/ cities/ towns/ K-12 schools in 13 states.  This includes over 125 cities and towns in Massachusetts including Greenfield, South Hadley and Lenox.  If you take a look at these Mass town website examples, you find that they are very comprehensive and have many similar features.

VTH has proposed to deliver a turnkey solution for Longmeadow including a custom design and migration of information from the existing Longmeadow.org website. 

Below is a summary of the costs from this proposal.

One time design + development including training- $6500
Annual website hosting, maintenance and support- $3500
Total first year charge- $10,000
Subsequent years charge- $3500

The proposed development- implementation timeline is 10-12 weeks.

Sounds like a plan... but wait....

There is one important aspect to this proposal that needs to be seriously considered by the Select Board before they decide to embark on this route:

According to VTH's President, Millard Rose, a town the size of Longmeadow would typically have 10 "content managers" (which I assume means designated town employees) with responsibilities to provide updates for their portion of the website.  For example, the Town Clerk's office would have a designated employee that would post updates relating to elections, voter registration, etc. while someone in the DPW would post street closings, hydrant flushing notices, etc.  and so on...

Training for these "content managers" is included in the above pricing. Those employees who will be selected as "content managers" will be glad to hear that there is no need to learn HTML (or other webmaster skills) and that the Content Management System (CMS) is very easy to learn.

In other words, the $10,000 first year charges and the subsequent $3500 annual maintenance charge does not include website updates.

With all of the town employee reductions that have been made in the past couple of years, how will this increased workload be absorbed?

Mr. Barkett also wants to include website support for Storrs Library and community organizations as part of this new website direction.... at what cost?

Let's hope that one month from today our Select Board is not still forming a task force to study the situation or evaluating options and that there is an actual plan in place for a new Longmeadow website.... be it http://www.longmeadow.gov/ or http://www.longmeadow.org/

An old story...

From the beginning, www.longmeadow.org which was created by volunteers in 1997 was designed to be a community based website... not an "official town government" website.  

In 1997 the domain name for an official town government website in Massachusetts should have been www.longmeadow.ma.us which was a reserved name. Today, cities and towns in Massachusetts use the .gov extension- e.g. http://www.longmeadow.gov/.  Such a domain name authenicates the website as an "official government" website since these are reserved names for federal agencies, state governments, cities and towns.  For the record there are a few other cities/towns in Massachusetts still using the .org extension for their town websites.  Robin Crosbie at the July 12 Select Board meeting suggested to the SB that they consider a name change to the .gov extension.

The home page title for www.Longmeadow.org had always been "Welcome to the Town of Longmeadow, Massachusetts".  Now the page title reads "The New Official Town Government Website for the Town of Longmeadow, Massachusetts".

In March 1999- about 1½ years after Longmeadow.org was launched there was an attempt by the Select Board- chaired by Hal Haberman with Jerry Nolet and Arlene Miller as the other two Select Board members to convert www.longmeadow.org to an "official town government" website.  This action met considerable resistance from co-webmasters Jim Moran and Mark Gold who made a counter proposal for privatization to keep it a community website. The proposal was later withdrawn after the Select Board decided to allow the website to remain as a community website. [click here to view full article]

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About 2½ years ago in March 2008, I was interviewed on the LCTV weekly show called Around Town by host Arlene Miller.  The discussion included the workings of the town websites including  Longmeadow.org and LongmeadowBiz.com and a new entity called the LongmeadowBuzz blog.  It is worthwhile to listen to Ms. Miller's personal comments about the value of our town websites- particularly given her skepicism some nine years earlier.  Below is a video replay of the interview courtesy of LCTV.

Our Town with Arlene Miller- LCTV

Food for Thought

Given all of the political flack that I have received from three members of the Select Board about the Longmeadow Buzz blog and the links to it from the town website, it's interesting that the State of Massachusetts allows a link to following blog from the homepage of the official State website.
 
At Issue and InFocus- The Official Blog of the Massachusetts Attorney General- Martha Coakley http://blog.ago.state.ma.us/blog/

Guidelines from the front page of this state sponsored and approved blog include...

Comment Policy
We welcome your participation in this blog and we hope you will share your ideas, your encouragement, and your experience with fellow readers. Dissenting points of view are welcome, but we ask that you be respectful of our contributors, readers and participants.  By commenting to this blog, you agree to the terms of this policy. The AGO reserves the right to change this policy at any time, without notification.

This is a moderated blog. Comments are welcome at any time, but they will generally be reviewed and posted within regular business hours (Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.). Please do not resubmit your comment if it does not appear right away.  All submitted comments are subject to review and approval by the AGO’s blog moderators before they will be posted.
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I would expect that the Massachusetts AGO would probably have moderated (censored) many (if not all) of Jerold Duquette's posts that have appeared on LongmeadowBuzz for objectionable content if they had been submitted to the state sponsored AGO blog.
______________________________________

As Alex Grant pointed out in his Opinion column (Payback in Town Politics) published in this week's edition of the Longmeadow News, the LongmeadowBuzz blog was not the town website.  He doubted that anyone was mislead to believe that the town website and the Buzz blog were one and the same thing.
_______________________________________

The fact of the matter is that there obviously needs to be some guidelines for the town website about acceptable links.  The State of Massachusetts must approve of the above AGO's blog link because there is a prominent link to it on the official state website (see link at top right hand side on www.mass.gov, Connecting with Us).

No specific guidelines for content or links have ever been formally established for the Longmeadow town website. 

However, the existence of links from the "official" town website to the Buzz blog for over two years without objection would appear to be implicit approval by the Select Board.  As mentioned in a previous post there had been no request from the Select Board for removal of the LongmeadowBuzz link until July 14, 2010 and it was quickly removed without objection.

The Audacity of Volunteering

First, thank you, Jim Moran, for your many years of service to the town. Your foresight, initiative and just plan hard work has provided us with a website that was informative, complete, easily navigable and attractive. Thanks for the pictures, the articles, the buzz, the biz. Thanks for tracking down unposted minutes of governmental bodies. Thanks for demanding accuracy and completeness from reluctant public officials. This was not a .gov website. This was a .org website, a non-profit venture more like a newspaper than a town report. And, it was clearly a labor of love, not just love of government but love of Longmeadow.

The actions of the Longmeadow Select Board in publicly chastising you and then “firing” you from your unpaid volunteer work as webmaster are purely political. This was no calm discussion of content and links. It was not a desire to give more work to the town’s lone IT person. It was punishment because you did not support the school building project. And, furthermore, you had the audacity to print (here on this blog at longmeadowbuzz.blogspot.com) 6-month old official correspondence about the project that raised serious questions, correspondence that had been obtained through a Freedom of Information request by another town group.

I wish you the best of luck in your new venture, longmeadowMA.org. I know it will be as reasoned and responsible as you have always been. A little more audacity would be okay too.


Kathy Grady

Insubordinate Volunteer?

During the July 12 Longmeadow Select Board meeting (see previous posting for video clip of discussion) it was made very clear by Chairman Rob Aseltine that there was a need for a significant revamping of the Longmeadow.org town website and institution of new policy guidelines for allowable website content and links.

Key discussion points made by SB members at this meeting included:
1. The town website should primarily reflect the official business of the Town of Longmeadow.
2. There should be no links or connections to any business related ventures.
3. Inclusion of any non-town government related groups should be considered on a case-by-case basis.

With my normal rapid response to website issues and problems that I have demonstrated over the past 13 years, I spent a considerable number of hours during the past two weeks (of course, in my volunteer capacity at no cost to the town) separating the Longmeadow.org website into two entities in anticipation of some new guidelines

1. http://www.longmeadow.org/ - the new official Town Government website with a new masthead reflecting a new focus. All of the information related to Town Government was left untouched and easily accessible.

[click above to enlarge]

2. http://www.longmeadowma.org/ - a newly created privately supported website for all of the components that probably didn’t belong on Longmeadow.org given the strongly expressed views of the majority of the Select Board.

The website changes were made on Sunday night so as not to cause any inconvenience or confusion to town residents and was online Monday morning with an explanation as to what happened.

For the past thirteen years that I have been maintaining the town website as a unpaid volunteer, website changes have been made without the need for any formal approval
…. even today, there are no policy guidelines in place so I didn’t feel that I needed any approval.

What happened on Monday morning was completely unexpected given my best intentions and the situation quickly got out of hand… The Select Board Chairman issued a direct order to regain control of the website which meant changing the password for the town website server and the webmaster@longmeadow.org  email account. This happened by 10 am Monday morning. By the end of the Select Board meeting Monday night, Jim Moran had been officially removed as town webmaster for becoming an “insubordinate volunteer”. Interestingly enough, there was no attempt on Monday morning or any time during the remainder of the day to communicate by phone or email to inquire as to what had happened.

Below is a video clip (courtesy of LCTV) of the Select Board discussion.




Longmeadow Select Board- 7/26/10

Anyone who has followed this heated discussion and is familiar with the situation knows that the issue was not about the town website and how it was maintained. The issue was about removing easy access to information not readily available on the town website (namely the LongmeadowBuzz blog). Anyone who says otherwise is not familiar with all of the facts.

It is interesting that the link to the LongmeadowBuzz blog which has caused all of this furor has been on the town website for about 2½ years. Only when information and commentary about some town officials and employees involved about the High School Building Project was posted on LongmeadowBuzz did it ignite the current heated debate. When asked to remove all links to LongmeadowBuzz from the town website on July 14, they were quickly removed without objection.  There had been no request to remove the LongmeadowBuzz link by the Select Board or Town Manager prior to July 14.
.................

Now that the Select Board chair Aseltine has successfully removed me as town webmaster…

Will his next move be to have my name removed from the plaque in the Longmeadow Town Hall recognizing my selection as Citizen of the Year for 2005 for my outstanding community service work on the town website?

Conflict of Interest?

The Longmeadow.org webmaster (that’s me) was charged last month in a series of emails from Rob Aseltine as having a serious conflict of interest by being the town webmaster and posting of personal opinion here on the Longmeadow Buzz blog. Mr. Aseltine’s contention was that these personal opinions affected what I was willing to post with regard to the high school building project on the town website.

During last week’s Select Board meeting (7/12/10), Mr. Barkett cited visible links to the LongmeadowBuzz blog on the town website as both “confusing to the public” and “unvetted opinion”. For Mr. Barkett’s edification there are also very prominent links on the town website to LCTV…. and anyone who decides to follow them will be quickly led to the LCTV's program videos of “Put Up Your Duqs” (PUYD) by Jerold Duquette- the content of which certainly meets the same criteria. Should we also remove the LCTV link from the town website?

This past week Mr. Aseltine demanded that all links to the LongmeadowBuzz blog be removed from Longmeadow.org as soon as possible and they were removed without objection. Interestingly enough, the LongmeadowBuzz blog has been in existence for over 2½ years and this is first time that any directive about the links has been given by the Select Board.

In support of Mr. Aseltine’s “conflict of interest” assertion, Christine Swanson- co-chair of the SBC outlined one “example” during last week’s SB discussion that involved a delay in posting event information relating to a planned School Building Committee tour of Longmeadow HS.

From my webmaster email records, here is the timeline...

1. SBC request by Ms. Swanson- Thursday night, May 13 at 10:58 PM
2. Second request asking why the announcement had not yet been posted- Saturday night at 6:05 PM
3. Email response by webmaster on Sunday night at 9:33 PM indicating that he was out of town at a family wedding starting Thursday morning and would post the announcement Monday morning.
4. Announcement was posted on the Longmeadow.org homepage, the SBC website and the Town Calendar on Monday morning at 10 AM for maximum visibility.

Perhaps, better planning by the SBC and Ms. Swanson would have provided greater lead time for publicizing this event. Even if the town website was “professionally managed” as is being suggested, it is not likely that Ms. Swanson would have received a quicker response. This is a pretty weak example of a significant “conflict of interest”.

As far as I am aware there have been no incidents which will show that I censored, filtered or refused to post any school building project related documents on the SBC or town websites. In one example refuting this accusation, I worked very diligently trying to obtain SBC meeting minutes so that they could be posted on the SBC website in a timely manner to keep town residents updated about this important project. However, in many cases, there were delays of up to 3 months before SBC meeting minutes were sent to me for posting despite my numerous requests for them.

All information "above and beyond" what was expected was posted on the School Building Committee website in a timely fashion. My personal opinions expressed here on the Buzz did not influence this effort.

As I have mentioned in prior posts, it was the posting of the November 2009 MSBA/ SBC correspondence on the Buzz (Now is the time!) that caused this latest town website controversy. In a Springfield-Channel 3 interview on June 3, 2010,  Jahn Hart, Superintendent of Schools stated that these letters had been public information since November when they were received. If that were the case, why did it take an appeal by Roger Wojcik and his group to the Massachusetts Attorney General under the Freedom of Information Act before these letters were released to the public?  There was virtually no mention of the content of these letters in published meeting minutes.  I believe that the content of these letters state volumes as to the reasons why the letters were withheld from the general public. “That is my personal opinion”.

The new Massachusetts Open Meeting Law that started July 1, 2010 imposes significantly more documentation requirements on town committees and boards including civil penalties and fines up to $1000 for each intentional violation. Perhaps, if this law had been in effect last November, these MSBA/SBC letters would have been required to be public record and easily accessible at the Town Clerk's office in the Longmeadow Town Hall.

A final point… with the Select Board now actively considering action to revamp management of the town website (primarily, in response to my LongmeadowBuzz activity) I believe that two Select Board members (Barkett and Swanson) should abstain from voting on any decision because of the obvious conflict of interest on their part- they are the School Building Committee co-chairs involved with this incident.

Past/ Present/ Future of the Longmeadow Websites

The original Longmeadow town website- www.Longmeadow.org/ started through a volunteer effort led by Jim Moran continues to grow and prosper at virtually no cost to the Town of Longmeadow. Our town website recently celebrated its 10th anniversary this past December.

www.LongmeadowBiz.com/ was also started by Jim Moran about 4½ years ago as a complementary website to www.Longmeadow.org/ in an effort to expand web services for Longmeadow residents and to connect to local businesses serving the Longmeadow community.

Longmeadow residents have benefited from LongmeadowBiz.com through the creation of free web based services some of which include a Town Calendar, Bulletin Board and FREE Classified Ads. Advertising revenue from local businesses for LongmeadowBiz.com provides financial support for both websites.

If you are interested in learning more about our town websites, please watch the video clip below. This video clip provided through the courtesy of Longmeadow Community Television is a segment from the regular broadcast program called “Our Town” with hostess Arlene Miller interviewing Jim Moran- webmaster. Past history as well as future plans for the town websites are discussed.