Thursday, March 15, 2007
" JUST WONDERING? "
A Question to those that may know...Why aren't there any E-Mail addresses for City Departments listed on the Town Web Page? Telephone numbers are listed.....20th century communication device.....but as far as being interactive.....21st century communication device, the Web Page is sorely lacking. It was my understanding that the NEW WEB PAGE was going to be more interactive and allow the citizens greater access to City Hall? Granted there are a few things that you can do over the net but on the whole the web page reads more like a Telephone Directory (The Yellow Book) than a web page. There are no City documents available other than permits for this that and the other, and no way to contact a Department with a question over the net. The telephone only allows access during working hours and if there is someone available. I bring this up because in an earlier Blog we discussed electric generation and I was curious as to how much the City paid for electricity. I went to the City Web Page thinking that that sort of information would be available, The City does publish a yearly report, journal, whatever, listing all sorts of information from salaries to status of city vehicles. Why isn't that available on the net? The City Web Page should, as well as being a Travel Guide for the Chamber of Commerce and Telephone Directory, it should also be a portal to information for it's citizens. How much do we pay for Electricity anyway?
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8 comments:
Southview while I agree the new city web site is not all that great, it does allow greater access to some documents. Maybe your interpretation of access is different than that of whoever makes the decision as to what will be offered. I think this goes along with the last thread, that Berkshire County business is so far behind the times with technology that will take a major initiative to bring it up to speed. We all witnessed the great backlash when Wes first proposed Muni Wifi.
As for the email/telephone issue, I'm not sure what your gaining. Yes you could send an email at 2am, but it wouldn't be answered until the next business day anyway. I could also see where there might be a flood of non-sensical email that winds up in these boxes and would take city employees time to weed through the wheat from the chaffe. I'm sure it would eventually die down when people realized that they were going to receive a response. Most other web sites of this type do have an email address for the various departments, and I'm sure these dept's also field a lot irrelevant phone calls as well. So I am with you on this one.
Southview, I took your word on the lack of email addresses as I hadn't noticed any when I first visited the site. However I just went to the site and under Contact Information there is an email link to the various departments. You need to click on each department to get to the "mailto" link.
My apologizes to the City of North Adams.
da snoop....Thanks!
Da snoop...Got it, didn't do enough clicken. Now to hunt for that information!
I am not sure what you will find about electric use-----the budget we see--only has line items of Expenses and Salaries for each Department-----no itemization-----The electric use by department would not be available anyway---no line items for that--- unless it was by buildings-- and that isn't in the budget figures-- in other words-- there would be no information as to electric use in the City Clerk's Office or the Mayor's office there maybe somewhere the expenditure for City Hall ----or individual schools---or City Yard------but I don't remember seeing such----chbpod
Not looking for individual office usage but by building. What is a foi request, speak english? :~) Any building that has an electric meter will have a bill sent for that meter reading. How do we pay for street lighting or traffic lighting? If there is a bill sent it would have to be accounted for someplace. Is their an itimized department by department listing of monies in, monies out? Is that what a foi is? Help me out here people, I'm in uncharted waters here and my boat is leakin! :~)
PS: It is FREE to the public right? I mean I shouldn't have to PAY for access to public records!
FOI---- stands for Freedom of Information----that's federal---state is the Massachusetts Public Records act--- but FOI is sufficient- request must be in writing----and specifiy exactly what you are looking for----my guess is that the auditors office could tell you what was paid--whether that would include the schools- I don;t know- chbpod
Try the Teasurer's Office- Jennifer Macksey Ethier---for City-- but not schools----chbpod
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