Below are links to the latest press releases that were posted this morning (12/28/10) on the Longmeadow town website- www.Longmeadow.org
A couple of comments....
- The press releases for the Holiday Trash Collection and the ATM warrant articles were released for immediate publication by the Town Manager on December 20. Why does it take 8 days for the notices to be posted? In addition, the holiday trash collection notice was a bit too late for those who had their trash collected yesterday to find out that there was a Select Board Christmas gift of one additional FREE trash bag.
- Yesterday, there was a snow emergency declared for the state of Massachusetts but there was no information posted on the town website about town related operations including snowplowing, parking regulations, town hall hours or trash collections. In the past, town residents could visit the town website for the latest storm related information.
- The Long Meddowe Days planning meeting notice is interesting.... I guess that there will be an attempt to provide posting of private group notices on the town website as well.
- A suggestion.... there are a couple of notices that should be removed since the events have passed. With all of the clutter, it is difficult to find important notices.
All of the above notices would have been posted within 24 hours on the Longmeadow Community Bulletin Board (as they have been posted for the past five years) if they were sent to LongmeadowBiz. However, the Select Board chairman has notified all town departments that LongmeadowBiz should not be included with the distribution of press releases since it is not considered an "official" media outlet- (whatever that means). In a past Buzz blog post I have highlighted the website for the town of Amherst as a great benchmark for Longmeadow to emulate but have been criticized by a member of the Town Manager's Website Taskforce because he felt that a simple Wordpress CMS "right out of the box" would work just fine and would be "free" or very low cost to the town.
Amherst just released a "new look" for their town website designed to be easier for people to use according to an article this past weekend in the Springfield Republican. I would encourage town residents to take a look... but don't expect Longmeadow's new website to match up very well.
It's been almost six months since the town website was "taken over" by the Rob Aseltine and the Longmeadow Select Board. Let's hope that the announced unveiling of the new town website scheduled for January 1 will actually happen and be responsive to the needs of Longmeadow residents.
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