Above: The Main Street Design Working Group created a website to encourage residents to stay informed on their work and progress. (Image from site screenshot)
The Main Street Design Working Group was charged with a big task in a tight time frame. Their deadline to for a final report to the Board of Selectmen is this Tuesday, June 17.
Trying to get the work done while keeping the public informed is a challenge. To help, member Claire Reynolds developed a website for group communications.
The recently created site shares resident comments, meeting minutes, agendas and pictures.
As more documents are created or received, the site will be used to share them:
The site will continuously be updated as additional information is received and the working group finalizes their report for discussion at the Board of Selectmen’s June 17th meeting.
There is also a message board. And Reynolds is publicly encouraging residents to use the site to communicate with the group.
It is the hope of the working group to have any resident, business or other concerned party – post their comments and questions. You are also encouraged to contact any of the working group members.
The members and their emails are listed on the site.
As of writing this story, the site hasn’t been updated with their next (and presumably last) meeting. So I’ll share that agenda, here. The meeting takes place at Cordaville Hall on Monday, June 16, at 7:00 pm.
The June 17th Board of Selectmen meeting isn’t posted on the town website yet. I can’t tell you the time, but it’s safe to presume it will be that evening in the Town House Hearing room.
This is exactly the kind of communication tool our Town needs. The Main Street situation is a huge infrastructure change not to mention a very large tax payer investment. By developing a simple communication tool like this website, no one can say they didn’t have proper information or were not kept in the loop. This is government transparency in action.
I know Ms. Reynolds is a former Advisory Committee member, and I’ll note that Advisory does use Shutterfly to host a website as well. Both Committees have tons of information on these websites. I’m personally very pleased these Committees have taken the lead to promote government communication. Others boards and committees should follow suit.
In fact, I would be 100% in favor of the Town redeveloping its website to fit with the modern era. Right now there is very little information on the Town’s website, and quite frankly that’s a huge problem. We live in the Google era, and modern technology makes it easy and financially reasonable (from what I know) to get up to speed and have information at our finger tips.
I’m definitely not a tech person, so learning what’s out there would be really interesting. I would like to know who else finds the Town’s website lacking a modern feel? What are some suggestions people have to improve government communication? Perhaps the leaders of our Town who read this blog could learn something too and be enlightened. We do have a Municipal Technology Committee. Perhaps this is something they should investigate.
I wholeheartedly agree. We should be embarrassed at the lack of technology support that our various boards get. There are sectors in our government that are not supportive of making every government document including emails on the web.
While I was chair of Advisory I encountered active resistance to putting a link to the Advisory Web Site on the town’s web site. I also observed active resistance from our School Committee to posting public documents on the Advisory Web Site. There have been many other examples of foot dragging in public records requests.
A few years ago I did a study of about 75 Advisory/Finance committees to see how they were appointed. Many have web sites similar to our Advisory Web Site with information about town budgets (ours is among the most exhaustive). Those that have them are part a town web site. Southborough stands alone (at least as of a year or so ago) in making its committees develop their own web sites.
I would encourage all those who read this site to attend the meeting Wed., June 18th @ Trottier School @7pm. Oh, and bring a friend and neighbor. People have to learn just what the impact of this Main St. Reconstruction will be, both financially and aesthetically. We, the taxpayers have not been told how much it will cost us, however we have been told how much the state will allow. The information given has been very selective, no pun intended. And most townspeople don’t realize that at least 30 trees will be decimated. Our paridise, our rural, historic Main St. will be paved into an alternate travel route for Rte 9. Make not mistake, if this state plan goes forward, Southborough will be dealing with more traffic, more risk of speeding and more accidents, only to provide out of town vehicles with a short cut. It is a lose- lose situation for us, the residents.
Will this meeting be video taped and/or telecast?