| Author |
Message |
    
Dave
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 5, 2001 - 9:54 am: |     |
How can the township improve communications with its residents? To date, the township has no e-mail address and voice mail capability for most of its departments. Yet, most adult residents work outside of Maplewood and are not in town during business hours. |
Admin
| | Posted on Saturday, June 16, 2001 - 7:36 am: | |
DAVID HUEMER:
I offer the following specific suggestions to improve communications between Maplewood, the Township Committee, and its residents:
- Improve sound quality of the televised Township Committee meetings on Channel 35.
- Make putting up a Town website a communications priority.
- Include a newsletter reporting on community events and a directory of departments and their employees in the annual recycling mailings and tax bills.
- Expand the democratic tradition of holding regularly scheduled office hours outside of Town Hall to Channel 35, the Maplewood Senior Center, and both libraries.
- Set up a listserve that would include every resident who wanted to participate. Residents could subscribe to the listserve and get periodic e-mails about all aspects of life in Maplewood. (My thanks to a Richmond Avenue resident who suggested this.) The posting of Township agendas on Maplewoodonline could be a model for how the Town could expand its communications with residents.
Full automation can supplement personal communication, but it should not replace it. Maplewood Town Hall is one of the few places that you can call and speak to a human being without first going through several automated menus. We can preserve the human touch while providing alternative means of access to local government. |
Admin
| | Posted on Saturday, June 16, 2001 - 7:42 am: | |
SCOTT KISCH:
I'm concerned about this not just because residents might be out of town, but TC members as well! It happens.
Residents with disabilities need to be considered as part of this equation also.
Sounds like an opportunity to pursue a working public-private partnership with one of our corporate residents -- Verizon (for phone) -- and a company that earns substantial revenue from Maplewood residents -- Comcast (for Internet/DSL). We could start w/a pilot program that covers just one township office or department. Measure its effectiveness. Fine tune where necessary. Then expand it to cover the entire township administration.
For other thoughts, see below.*
*This was submitted in a one-document format; I will get in touch w/SK to make a more Internet-friendly reference. -Admin |
|