The Year is 2008..Middleboro successfully elected and supports town officials who have yet to discover the computer or the REAL WORLD beyond its borders.
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One of those elected officials, Selectman Steven Spartaro claims to actually work with computers for a living, but could barely contain his snickers and jokes and disbelief when confronted with a used car dealer who actually sells his inventory on the Internet.
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Mr. Spartaro's comments were embarrassing for the audience.
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When Mr. Peter Fohlin, candidate for Town Manager, was interviewed, many remember Mr. Spartaro's rude public confrontation. BOS .
Mr. Fohlin indicated that he believed the Board members should know as much as he did and believed in sending emails to inform the Selectmen to accomplish that goal.
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Maybe that constitutes a portion of Mr. Spartaro's fear - he might actually be informed. That is Mr. Spartaro of the non-published phone number, don't bother me, voters, mindset. The one who ducks when voters approach him. This is the Selectman who told you this was the BIG LEAGUES, but arrived late to the Jan. 28th meeting and ate his supper at the Jan. 21st meeting.
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BIG LEAGUES, ANYONE?
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But I have digressed from my intent.
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Each Friday, a Middleboro Police Officer actually delivers a package to each Middleboro Selectmen's home.
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That package contains PIECES OF PAPER pertaining to the Monday Night Follies, conducted by the Middleboro Selectmen.
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It would seem that a Board of TECHNOLOGICALLY INEPT FOLKS simply haven't figured out that MOST of the information in their packages was generated by computer.
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A click of a mouse, and that information COULD be sent to their home computers.
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Last year, I obtained a hard copy, an actual printed report in a fancy folder, from Melanson et al, the Town's former auditing firm.
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The report is ~ 50 pages long and I wanted it in electronic format to circulate on the internet.
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I actually requested the report in electronic format from the BOS AFTER I CALLED MELANSON and confirmed the report was available. Melanson said they would send it with permission from the Town since it was considered PROPRIETARY by them.
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Chairwoman Marsha Brunelle was compelled, for perverse reasons that I fail to understand, to submit the matter to Town Counsel for his opinion.
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Chairwoman Brunelle subsequently reworded Town Counsel's opinion and produced a letter, essentially paraphrasing the Public Disclosure Statute.
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The Town is not obligated to produce a report in a format in which it DOES NOT exist.
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One can only speculate that Town Counsel is as TECHNOLOGICALLY INEPT as the rest of the Board of Selectmen.
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If you are reading this, even if you are as computer inept as I am, what you see or generate is ELECTRONIC FORMAT.
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There is no magic here.
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Yes, I could have scanned the 50 pages myself, zipped it and accomplished the same.
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Your tax dollars paid for ELECTRONIC FORMAT.
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Now, Selectman Bond is currently being praised for discovering that the Town Clerk was spending $1800 for updates of law books in hard copy that the rest of the Town had available on the internet.
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Well, don't stop there Mr. Bond. The DOR Report raised additional issues about the failure of Middleboro to adequately employ TECHNOLOGY.
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Ever notice that the Town Clerk is still generating handwritten receipts? Surely those are sorted by hand to determine a recap of the dump stickers, dump permits and much else. How about the dog licenses?
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The rest of the world is moving to reduce paper documents, including the rest of government. Not so Middleboro!
And lest you vaguely believe anyone would be overlooked, Selectmen Rogers conducted the water rate hearing, spent much time accumulating information and producing reports. Those reports were ON HIS PERSONAL COMPUTER.
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There we go with ELECTRONIC FORMAT again!
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As a voter and taxpayer, I requested that Mr. Rogers post the information on the Town's Web Site for the public to review.
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Mr. Rogers participated in a committee that reviewed the consolidation of the Water and Sewer Departments in 2006. Mr. Tom White, as chairman of that committee indicated that the report would be completed before the end of the year (2007).
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Not done. Not posted. Not available to the public.
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Why do I keep thinking 'DONE IT THIS WAY FOR A HUNDRED YEARS, MAUDE!'
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Is it time to get rid of the dinosaurs?
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More to come with some positive solutions.
3 comments:
Not all Selectmen have the package provided to them by the police (not Bond or Spataro)
Dear Anonymous:
Thank you for your input, but that misses the larger focus of my comments.
PAPER & TIME
You have a secretary who is forced to generate, collate and package 5 copies for the Selectman, additional for the media, and so on.
A click of the mouse and VIOLA!
Send an email, post it on the Town Web Site, and be done with it.
The more people I speak to, the more I realize that others are doing precisely what we've been doing -- reading online.
Unless it's something complex, like a report that we want to highlight or study or cross reference with the footnotes, it doesn't get printed.
And these are not simply techno geeks or a younger demographics.
I'm finding older folks are doing the same.
Who wants to have to recycle paper?
Even the state and federal government are reducing paper.
But I'll have more to say about the issue!
If Mr. Brunelle works in Town Hall and only lives a few blocks away on Bourne St., why is Mrs. Brunelle's copy delivered?
Doesn't Mr. Brunelle go to Town Hall daily? Is that something voters weren't supposed to notice?
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