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/
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Select Board Sets FY12 Goals
An “offsite” Select Board (SB) meeting was held at the First Church of Christ (Parlor Room) in Longmeadow on August 23 to discuss FY12 goals. It lasted over 3½ hours. Only a few town residents attended the meeting. All SB members + the Town Manager were present.
Below is a video (Part I + Part II) of the meeting…. (using Windows Media Player will allow you to skip and listen to various portions of the meeting).
Select Board Meeting- 8-23-10, Part I
Select Board Meeting- 8-23-10, Part II
Summary
A large portion of the discussion involved mechanics of how the SB and individual board members would interact with each other and the Town Manager during the coming year.
Use of subcommittees (financial + operational) were proposed to facilitate a large portion of the SB’s work. These subcommittees (2 members max. each) would assess issues and prepare recommendations for the entire SB to discuss and to make decisions.
There was also a discussion about creating a new town committee that would be responsible for developing a much overdue long range capital plan to address Longmeadow’s failing water/sewer, street and building infrastructure. The need for additional school capital improvements in addition to the new high school was mentioned several times.
The need to continue reducing the cost of town government operations through improved operating efficiencies, productivity improvements, increased outsourcing, regionalization of operations and lower rates of increase for employee compensation and health care was highlighted. It was suggested that the SB consider the use of an outside consultant to identify key cost savings opportunities within town operations.
Additional highlights/ details of the meeting included:
Below is a video (Part I + Part II) of the meeting…. (using Windows Media Player will allow you to skip and listen to various portions of the meeting).
Select Board Meeting- 8-23-10, Part I Select Board Meeting- 8-23-10, Part IISummary
A large portion of the discussion involved mechanics of how the SB and individual board members would interact with each other and the Town Manager during the coming year.
Use of subcommittees (financial + operational) were proposed to facilitate a large portion of the SB’s work. These subcommittees (2 members max. each) would assess issues and prepare recommendations for the entire SB to discuss and to make decisions.
There was also a discussion about creating a new town committee that would be responsible for developing a much overdue long range capital plan to address Longmeadow’s failing water/sewer, street and building infrastructure. The need for additional school capital improvements in addition to the new high school was mentioned several times.
The need to continue reducing the cost of town government operations through improved operating efficiencies, productivity improvements, increased outsourcing, regionalization of operations and lower rates of increase for employee compensation and health care was highlighted. It was suggested that the SB consider the use of an outside consultant to identify key cost savings opportunities within town operations.
Additional highlights/ details of the meeting included:
- Formation of a financial “subcommittee” to assist with the development of the town annual budget and other financial issues that face the SB was proposed. Aseltine and Barkett both expressed dissatisfaction with last year’s budget process and wanted to change the methodology. A proposal was made to change the format of how the budget is developed by creating a “financial subcommittee” (similar to that employed by the School Committee). This new subcommittee would "assist" the Town Manager by setting specific goals and then helping to work out the details. This financial subcommittee could consist of only 2 SB members since 3 or more would represent a board quorum.
At times during this discussion the proposal for a new financial subcommittee seemed to be in conflict with the Town Charter since the Town Manager (not the SB) has the primary responsibility for preparing the town budget. - Barkett expressed a desire to rein in the activities of any “rogue” board members (Gold ? + Santaniello ?) who directly interact with department heads to obtain budget or other information. Aseltine and Barkett both favored a board protocol that required all information requests or questions be channeled through the SB chair and then through the Town Manager who would then ask the Dept. Head for the information. They believed that this would make for more efficient use of town employees' time and reduce redundant requests. Neither Gold and Santaniello supported that idea because they felt at times they needed to make direct contact with Department heads in order to have their budget related or other questions answered.
This proposal appeared to be directed at strengthening the chairman’s control of individual SB members direct interaction with town employees. Barkett pointed out that during last year’s budget process, it was Gold who acted as an “financial subcommittee” of one. This initiative by Gold provided a route to a budget compromise which was ultimately supported by the majority of the SB. Interestingly enough, it was Aseltine and Barkett who voted NO on this budget that was passed at the Annual Town Meeting. - Consistency of financial reporting between the school department and town government was also highlighted as a strong need. Also, an improved presentation of the budget to the town at the Annual Town Meeting will be sought.
- A concern: New subcommittee meetings must be public meetings and will require meeting minutes to be written and posted.
- Formation of an “operational” subcommittee…. again this discussion appeared to be one that involved reining in direct contact with town department heads or town employees by individual SB members…
- Aseltine, Barkett and Swanson favored the subcommittee approach while Gold and Santaniello had significant reservations.
- Formation of a town committee to evaluate the town’s long range capital needs including buildings, water/ sewer and roads. Santaniello suggested that this committee be formed without elected officials to ensure that the committee’s report is unbiased. Swanson objected strongly stating that she didn’t think a committee of non-elected volunteers would be able to accomplish much.
- A proposed consolidation of the School and Town IT departments was discussed in order to reduce costs and develop synergies.
- Aseltine proposed that the SB go paperless using Googlesites (GoogleDocs?) so that the volume of material printed for each meeting could be dramatically reduced. In addition, information can be more readily shared with town residents if it were available online. In a related matter, there was no discussion about plans or timeline for resolution of the town’s Longmeadow.org website problems.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Cost of Technology
The Longmeadow School Department recently introduced a new website developed using a GoogleSites template (a free service of Google) that allows for unique webpage customization and provides for a robust content management system.
Below is the GoogleSites template...
Here is the homepage for the new Longmeadow School Department website....
According to some early reviews, the new Longmeadow School Dept website is easy to navigate and has a built-in feature that allows approved users in the school department (school committee members ?) to add information. However, at the present time there appears to be only one person who routinely updates the website and adds information to it and so the burden is not shared broadly.
I must agree that the "look and feel" of this website is quite professional and is capable of providing easy access to information, particularly if you use the website search tool that can be found at the top of the homepage.
I used this search tool to find the FY11 Longmeadow School Department Budget and discovered some interesting facts. Below is a snapshot of one section of the FY11 budget that reveals that there is a $1545 stipend being paid for managing the BBH school website...
I also found corresponding stipends for each of the other schools + the school department adding up to $10,815 for FY11. There were also similar budget items for FY09 and FY10 and for prior years. I believe that these line items have been in place for at least 5 years so the Longmeadow School Department has spent ~ $50K maintaining the individual schools and school department websites.
With the current budget contraints I would urge the Longmeadow School Committee to make sure that these budget dollars ($10,815/ year) are used effectively. I strongly recommend that it consider integrating the individual school websites with the new School Department website. The burden of updating and adding new content could then be shared broadly by School Department employees. This change would dramatically improve the appearance and usefulness of the many different Longmeadow school websites.
Below is the GoogleSites template...
Here is the homepage for the new Longmeadow School Department website....
According to some early reviews, the new Longmeadow School Dept website is easy to navigate and has a built-in feature that allows approved users in the school department (school committee members ?) to add information. However, at the present time there appears to be only one person who routinely updates the website and adds information to it and so the burden is not shared broadly.
I must agree that the "look and feel" of this website is quite professional and is capable of providing easy access to information, particularly if you use the website search tool that can be found at the top of the homepage.
I used this search tool to find the FY11 Longmeadow School Department Budget and discovered some interesting facts. Below is a snapshot of one section of the FY11 budget that reveals that there is a $1545 stipend being paid for managing the BBH school website...
I also found corresponding stipends for each of the other schools + the school department adding up to $10,815 for FY11. There were also similar budget items for FY09 and FY10 and for prior years. I believe that these line items have been in place for at least 5 years so the Longmeadow School Department has spent ~ $50K maintaining the individual schools and school department websites.
With the current budget contraints I would urge the Longmeadow School Committee to make sure that these budget dollars ($10,815/ year) are used effectively. I strongly recommend that it consider integrating the individual school websites with the new School Department website. The burden of updating and adding new content could then be shared broadly by School Department employees. This change would dramatically improve the appearance and usefulness of the many different Longmeadow school websites.
Letter to the Editor
The following letter to the editor appeared in the August 19 edition of the Longmeadow News and is reprinted here at the request of its author.
_____________________________________________
Dear Editor,
As a regular columnist for the former town website, and a past columnist for the Longmeadow News, I am in a unique position. I have worked with Jim Moran in his capacity as an excellent webmaster, for over a decade. He was and is always professional and helpful. Never did I question his ability as an un-paid volunteer. He was never an employee of the town, so it is more than odd that an elected official called him insubordinate. Jim ran a great website full of useful information for town residents and the world at large. He always was open to suggestions and made improvements to the site very often to make it more user friendly to all. I respect him and his work.
Did our elected officials ever visit the website? If so, they would have noticed the "material" in question was on a link to LongmeadowBuzz not the town website itself. It all makes me wonder why anyone even bothers to give their time to be a thankless volunteer in this distrusting day and age. This town and its organizations and groups have been run by town volunteers for over a century! These people help with the schools, historical groups and senior center not to mention the elected officials who work long hours tirelessly to be professional in unpaid positions! I hope people still get involved with our town, but why do it for free? Now do we have to pay someone to be webmaster? And where are we getting the funds for that? Can the select board please apologize for whatever misunderstanding occurred. Jim has now moved on - its too late to re-hire him as a volunteer.
Is this the way to treat a Citizen of the Year?
Our website should bring people together, not tear them apart!
Good work Jim! It has been a pleasure to work with you for the past eleven years, and THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
Betsy H. Port
Longmeadow resident and volunteer
_____________________________________________
Dear Editor,
As a regular columnist for the former town website, and a past columnist for the Longmeadow News, I am in a unique position. I have worked with Jim Moran in his capacity as an excellent webmaster, for over a decade. He was and is always professional and helpful. Never did I question his ability as an un-paid volunteer. He was never an employee of the town, so it is more than odd that an elected official called him insubordinate. Jim ran a great website full of useful information for town residents and the world at large. He always was open to suggestions and made improvements to the site very often to make it more user friendly to all. I respect him and his work.
Did our elected officials ever visit the website? If so, they would have noticed the "material" in question was on a link to LongmeadowBuzz not the town website itself. It all makes me wonder why anyone even bothers to give their time to be a thankless volunteer in this distrusting day and age. This town and its organizations and groups have been run by town volunteers for over a century! These people help with the schools, historical groups and senior center not to mention the elected officials who work long hours tirelessly to be professional in unpaid positions! I hope people still get involved with our town, but why do it for free? Now do we have to pay someone to be webmaster? And where are we getting the funds for that? Can the select board please apologize for whatever misunderstanding occurred. Jim has now moved on - its too late to re-hire him as a volunteer.
Is this the way to treat a Citizen of the Year?
Our website should bring people together, not tear them apart!
Good work Jim! It has been a pleasure to work with you for the past eleven years, and THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
Betsy H. Port
Longmeadow resident and volunteer
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Longmeadow Website Controversy Continues....
Here is the article that appears in this morning's Springfield Republican about my dismissal as an "insubordinate" volunteer webmaster for the town of Longmeadow....
click here to read the complete article
In this article, Mr. Aseltine is quoted...
Aseltine said his concerns were not about whether or not Moran was in favor or against the school project. "He is entitled to his opinion. The problem was that while he was running the town site he was also posting personal attacks on the Select Board members and the former superintendent of schools."
"We just think that Jim is no longer in a position to run the town site objectively."
As has been mentioned in previous posts on LongmeadowBuzz, Mr. Aseltine could not provide any specific examples of how the LongmeadowBuzz blog postings affected the posting of information on the School Building Committee or Town of Longmeadow websites... because there were none!
I guess that Mr. Aseltine believes that I am entitled to my opinion as long as I don't go public with it.
The so-called "personal attacks" referred to by Mr. Aseltine were directed at the School Building Committee co-chairs (not Select Board members) and the Superintendent of Schools because it appeared that they were directly involved with what happened to the "disappearing/ reappearing" public correspondence in November between the SBC and the MSBA.
Mr. Aseltine and the SB are now engaged in the development of a new "government based" website where there will be clear guidelines for the new webmaster so that problems do not arise in the future. We can all guess how revealing and insightful that information will be for town residents.
I suggest that Mr. Aseltine take a course in how the Internet has transformed politics and almost every other aspect of life. The online world can respond much more rapidly.... and it can be quite effective (or damaging) in how it is used. I don't take this responsibility very lightly.
I recommend that town residents interested in staying abreast to what is happening in Longmeadow visit the LongmeadowBuzz blog occasionally.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Select Board Goal Setting Meeting
On Monday, August 23 starting at 6 PM, the Longmeadow Select Board will conduct an "offsite" goal setting meeting in the parlor of the First Church of Christ at 763 Longmeadow Street in Longmeadow. As I understand it, LCTV has been asked not to televise this session.
It is interesting that the majority of the Select Board (Aseltine, Barkett and Swanson) want this meeting to be "off camera" so that process of goal setting and priority setting can be "more focused and relaxed". Gold and Santaniello want the meeting to be taped for later broadcast.
Ms. Swanson noted that with the new open meeting law meeting minutes must be more "robust" than previously required so that there is a mechanism by which town residents can be informed. [However, it should be noted that Select Board meeting minutes have not been posted for about 2 months and the School Building Committee has not posted its meeting minutes for 5 months.]
Below is a video clip of last night's SB discussion on the subject of taping next week's meeting...
It is interesting that the majority of the Select Board (Aseltine, Barkett and Swanson) want this meeting to be "off camera" so that process of goal setting and priority setting can be "more focused and relaxed". Gold and Santaniello want the meeting to be taped for later broadcast.
Ms. Swanson noted that with the new open meeting law meeting minutes must be more "robust" than previously required so that there is a mechanism by which town residents can be informed. [However, it should be noted that Select Board meeting minutes have not been posted for about 2 months and the School Building Committee has not posted its meeting minutes for 5 months.]
Below is a video clip of last night's SB discussion on the subject of taping next week's meeting...
According to OPEN MEETING LAW, G.L. c. 30A, §§ 18-25 (Effective July 1, 2010)...
section 20e: (e) After notifying the chair of the public body, any person may make a video or audio recording of an open session of a meeting of a public body, or may transmit the meeting through any medium, subject to reasonable requirements of the chair as to the number, placement and operation of equipment used so as not to interfere with the conduct of the meeting. At the beginning of the meeting the chair shall inform other attendees of any such recordings.
Chairman Aseltine cited that this was an important session for the Select Board and he invited all interested town residents to attend this meeting. [I just hope that the church parlor is large enough.]
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Longmeadow Volunteers
The Longmeadow Volunteers led by Bill Morey are a group of town residents that volunteer their time and effort to help make Longmeadow a more beautiful place to live. This group was formed several years ago and they coordinate their effort with the Longmeadow DPW. The volunteers bring their own equipment... and if necessary the DPW follows up on Monday morning to pick up the brush and other debris from their work.
Projects have included cleanup of many different areas of town including school building grounds, town building grounds Blinn tennis courts and the LHS track facility. A couple of weeks ago they cleaned up the American Legion building which is the old Town Hall. Last weekend in preparation for the beginning of the new school year, they started "sprucing up" school grounds starting with Center School and this past weekend the team was at the Glenbrook Middle School and Williams Middle School.
Below is a short video of the cleanup work that was done at Glenbrook Middle School.
Next weekend, August 21 their work shifts to the Longmeadow Adult Center on Maple Road from 9 am - 12 noon.
If you have some time and want to help, contact Bill Morey via email at billmorey@comcast.net . The location for future work will be posted on the Town Calendar.
Friday, August 13, 2010
An open letter to town residents
What happened to Longmeadow.org?
Here is some background….
In a series of emails from Select Board member Rob Aseltine in early June (before the town elections) the Longmeadow.org volunteer webmaster (that’s me) was charged with having a serious conflict of interest by being the town webmaster and posting of my personal opinions on the Longmeadow Buzz blog. Mr. Aseltine’s contention was that my personal opinions affected what I was willing to post with regard to the high school building project on the School Building Committee (SBC) website which I developed and maintained as a volunteer.
The LongmeadowBuzz blog was created 2½ years ago as an open forum for discussion of local topics of interest to Longmeadow residents. LongmeadowBuzz is a privately owned and moderated blog to which there was a “link” from the Longmeadow.org website. It is not supported financially or in any other manner by the town of Longmeadow. All town residents and town employees can participate. It is clearly and prominently stated on the blog that all opinions are strictly those of the listed author and do not represent official town policy.
Contrary to Mr. Aseltine’s assertions, there were no documented incidents which show that I censored, filtered or refused to post any high school building project related documents on the SBC or Longmeadow.org websites. All information "above and beyond" what was expected including web videos of public forums and LHS tours were posted in a timely manner- some of which were at my expense. The personal opinions that I expressed on the Longmeadow Buzz blog did not influence this effort.
Anyone who has followed this heated discussion and is familiar with the situation knows that the issue was not about the Longmeadow.org or the SBC websites or how they were maintained. The issue was about access for town residents to information and commentary not found on the town sponsored website (Longmeadow.org). As long as my LongmeadowBuzz posts were consistent with the “Vote YES” message advocated by the SBC, there was no conflict of interest. As soon as my commentary indicated a lack of support for the new high school project with criticism of certain town leaders, LongmeadowBuzz became a “conflict of interest” and the Longmeadow.org webmaster was targeted for removal.
Where does the Town of Longmeadow go from here? You are probably curious if you have recently visited Longmeadow.org.
It is clear that the posting of the November 2009 MSBA/ SBC letters + my critical commentary about the lack of truthfulness and transparency by certain town officials and employees on the Longmeadow Buzz (click to read --> Now is the time!) caused this town website controversy.When asked to remove all links to LongmeadowBuzz from Longmeadow.org on July 14, they were quickly removed without objection. This was first time that any directive about the links (or any other links) had been given by the Select Board or Town Manager.
The reality here is that Rob Aseltine has disconnected town government and all of its departments (including Storrs Library) from the free Internet resources that have been enjoyed for many years. Mr. Aseltine has decided that it is far more important to control the information and message from Town Hall than to have open and transparent government.
I believe that this is not the direction that Longmeadow needs to be heading!
If you concerned about this new direction, please send your comments to the Select Board and the Town Manager. Their official email address are shown below:
Robert Aseltine- raseltine@longmeadow.org
Robert Barkett- rbarkett@longmeadow.org
Christine Swanson- cswanson@longmeadow.org
Paul Santaniello- psantaniello@longmeadow.org
Mark Gold- mgold@longmeadow.org
Thank you for reading this letter. Longmeadow is a great town!
Let’s keep it that way.
Town residents can rest assured that LongmeadowBiz.com, LongmeadowBuzz and LongmeadowMA.org will not disappear.
Here is some background….
In a series of emails from Select Board member Rob Aseltine in early June (before the town elections) the Longmeadow.org volunteer webmaster (that’s me) was charged with having a serious conflict of interest by being the town webmaster and posting of my personal opinions on the Longmeadow Buzz blog. Mr. Aseltine’s contention was that my personal opinions affected what I was willing to post with regard to the high school building project on the School Building Committee (SBC) website which I developed and maintained as a volunteer.
The LongmeadowBuzz blog was created 2½ years ago as an open forum for discussion of local topics of interest to Longmeadow residents. LongmeadowBuzz is a privately owned and moderated blog to which there was a “link” from the Longmeadow.org website. It is not supported financially or in any other manner by the town of Longmeadow. All town residents and town employees can participate. It is clearly and prominently stated on the blog that all opinions are strictly those of the listed author and do not represent official town policy.
Contrary to Mr. Aseltine’s assertions, there were no documented incidents which show that I censored, filtered or refused to post any high school building project related documents on the SBC or Longmeadow.org websites. All information "above and beyond" what was expected including web videos of public forums and LHS tours were posted in a timely manner- some of which were at my expense. The personal opinions that I expressed on the Longmeadow Buzz blog did not influence this effort.
Anyone who has followed this heated discussion and is familiar with the situation knows that the issue was not about the Longmeadow.org or the SBC websites or how they were maintained. The issue was about access for town residents to information and commentary not found on the town sponsored website (Longmeadow.org). As long as my LongmeadowBuzz posts were consistent with the “Vote YES” message advocated by the SBC, there was no conflict of interest. As soon as my commentary indicated a lack of support for the new high school project with criticism of certain town leaders, LongmeadowBuzz became a “conflict of interest” and the Longmeadow.org webmaster was targeted for removal.
Where does the Town of Longmeadow go from here? You are probably curious if you have recently visited Longmeadow.org.
It is clear that the posting of the November 2009 MSBA/ SBC letters + my critical commentary about the lack of truthfulness and transparency by certain town officials and employees on the Longmeadow Buzz (click to read --> Now is the time!) caused this town website controversy.When asked to remove all links to LongmeadowBuzz from Longmeadow.org on July 14, they were quickly removed without objection. This was first time that any directive about the links (or any other links) had been given by the Select Board or Town Manager.
- Select Board Chair Aseltine has already made good on his threat to remove me as volunteer town webmaster (effective July 26). The website is now “under renovation” and the Select Board and the Town Manager are now assessing plans to fill the gap that has been created.
With the state legislature now mandating increasing amounts of town government information to be posted on town websites, the town will likely be required to spend a significant amount of time and resources supporting the town website. - Communication of information to town residents in Longmeadow is now being compromised. Press releases for Town Government and School Department are no longer being sent to LongmeadowBiz for posting on the Town Calendar and Longmeadow Community Bulletin Board even though a formal request was made to add LongmeadowBiz as one of the local media outlets. Both of these web resources have become important means of communication within our town over the past few years.
- An alternative website has been created at www.LongmeadowMA.org as the new home for community related content. My volunteer efforts for the benefit of town residents will continue. As in the past I am offering free webpage/ website support (including website hosting) for selected Longmeadow community groups and organizations (e.g., Gardeners on the Green, Longmeadow Historical Society, etc.). If a local Longmeadow group or organization is interested, please send an email request with contact details to webmaster@LongmeadowMA.org .
- Carl Sturgis, Storrs Library Director, had earlier accepted my offer of unlimited free website support for the library and its staff but he has now said “thanks, but no thanks”. Mr. Sturgis has now indicated that he will rely upon library staff to support their website. Given the events of the past few weeks, it’s not too difficult to guess what happened for the change of mind.
The reality here is that Rob Aseltine has disconnected town government and all of its departments (including Storrs Library) from the free Internet resources that have been enjoyed for many years. Mr. Aseltine has decided that it is far more important to control the information and message from Town Hall than to have open and transparent government.
I believe that this is not the direction that Longmeadow needs to be heading!
If you concerned about this new direction, please send your comments to the Select Board and the Town Manager. Their official email address are shown below:
Robert Aseltine- raseltine@longmeadow.org
Robert Barkett- rbarkett@longmeadow.org
Christine Swanson- cswanson@longmeadow.org
Paul Santaniello- psantaniello@longmeadow.org
Mark Gold- mgold@longmeadow.org
Thank you for reading this letter. Longmeadow is a great town!
Let’s keep it that way.
Town residents can rest assured that LongmeadowBiz.com, LongmeadowBuzz and LongmeadowMA.org will not disappear.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
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.
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]
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
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
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Payback in Town Politics
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| Longmeadow News- July 29, 2010 |
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In hindsight, it was probably a mistake for me to censor Jerold Duquette for a specific post relating to Mark Gold's positions given my strong support for his candidacy. However, I felt that Mr. Duquette's unrelenting assault on personal integrity and his lack of respect for dissenting opinion for Mr. Gold and other members of our community demanded that I remove his privileges. As I mentioned on the Buzz in a previous post, I gave Mr. Duquette numerous warnings on prior Buzz posts and I could never trust him to post without monitoring the content. I should have banned his participation on the Buzz after some of his earlier posts. Mr. Duquette had already been banned once on the Longmeadow MassLive forum- something that is pretty difficult to achieve and I was not going to allow his rhetoric to make the Buzz an extension of the MassLive forum.
Since last Monday's unprecedented takeover of the town website by the Longmeadow Select Board, the situation has deteriorated significantly with the website currently "under renovation". While I'm obviously not involved with the plans for the "renovated town website" I am confident that the new town website I created at www.LongmeadowMA.org will prosper. I am planning to reallocate a large portion of my volunteer time toward the support, maintenance and upgrade of the Online Storrs Library (http://www.longmeadowma.org/library/index.html) which I helped create over the past 13 years.
Given the ugly rhetoric against NO supporters that occurred during the high school building project, I would not be surprised to see some strongly worded rebuttal "letters to the editor" of Alex Grant's opinion column in upcoming issues of the Longmeadow News and The Reminder.
Something to remember...
This controversy about the website is about OPEN and TRANSPARENT government not a continuation of the School Building Project debate.
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