February 5, 2003

Web Committee Meeting Minutes

Meeting opened at 7:12 PM by Chairman Fred Steinberg

Other members present: Paul Vlach, Janis Gray and Leslie Bracebridge, recording minutes in Secretary Keith Dragon's absence.

Minutes of the August 7 meeting were accepted as written.

Fred's emailed summary of the November 6, 2002 meeting without a quorum was accepted.

1. Fred reported the successful move of the shutesbury.org website to a different server within "The Spa."

· With an upper limit of 100 or so e-mail addresses allowable, the committee agreed to actively seek out participation from more town departments.

· Paul volunteered to prepare a flier encouraging committees and boards to contact Keith Dragon with their information and to establish an email address.

· Paul is also working with the Police Department to renew their website and match the design of the other town pages.

2. Fred reported the successful renewal of the domain to "Go Daddy Software, Inc." from VeriSin's "Network Solutions, Inc."

· Shutesbury.us.gov is still in process, and

· Fred offered to look into shutesbury.cl.ma.us (a state listing.)

3. Requests to the announce@shutesbury.org are now automatically sent to Fred and the Town Administrator simultaneously.

· No names are attached to the email list that Leslie keeps for public record.

· A Governor's office legislative initiative to cut government costs would authorize cities and towns to post public notices on websites in place of the current paid newspaper advertisement requirements.

4. A request for bulk announcements about deliveries from a locally owned pizza shop would be of interest to local residents, but was not accepted because it concerned a private for profit business.

· The desire of the public is very strong for a site where a private citizen is allowed to say what is on his/her mind, advertise things, send out inquiries, etc.

· Fred intends to set up such a forum on a site not monitored or funded by the town and create a link to the site from shutesbury.org. Discussion followed about the implications for the town to link the private site to the town's site.

5. A concern has been brought to the committee that meeting minutes on the web can be modified, printed and used improperly.

· Could minutes be converted to PDF before being put on the website? Anyone having Acrobat could still modify minutes.

· The option of using a password was considered.

· A disclaimer will be added to notify readers that official true copies of minutes are available through the town clerk's office.

· Is the use of Microsoft Word on the town website be a proprietary problem? Could Keith convert everything to plain text to avoid liability?

The next meeting will be Wednesday, May 5 at 7 PM

The meeting adjourned at 8:05 PM

Respectfully submitted,

Leslie Bracebridge