The September meeting was held on September 19, 2001 at Borough Hall. In attendance were Emily Wolfe, Sally Santiago, Andy Bulfer, and George Jackson.

Accomplishments

• Andy Bulfer put the Mountain Lakes census data on. It is linked to the Borohall page and to the FAQs page and has a “What’s New” notice on the front page.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer formatted and installed the information about the Mountain Lakes Volunteer Fire Department which we received from Joe Mullaney.
  
  
• Emily Wolfe formatted and installed the information about the Mountain Lakes Police Department which she had received from Chief Tovo.
  
  
• Last week, we received an urgent request from the Mayor to install on the web site a message from him regarding the attack. We subsequently received it via fax. Andy promptly typed in the material and forwarded it to Emily Wolfe who formatted it and installed it in a very prominent but tasteful way in the center of the front page. She surrounded it with photos of the American flag. It was well done and the committee congratulated her.
  
  
• Sally Santiago received from Stephanie Johns some updated material about Boy Scout Troop 41. After working with Stephanie to correct some problems with the html and getting a gif that were missing, Sally successfully installed it on the site.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer split off the Municipal Court material from the Police Dept. material (they had previously been integrated together) and made the Municipal Court its own section.
  
  
• Emily Wolfe kept the pictures on the front page fresh and up-to date. She had some special pictures for labor day and later replaced them with photos of kids returning to school.
  
  
• Emily Wolfe installed the draft Community Church material that she had developed. Later she obtained approval from Pastor Larry Kelp with minor changes. She also obtained comments and corrections from George Jackson. She made all the corrections and the Community Church material is now finished and very nice.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer added the Water Quality information sent to him by Robin at Borough Hall.
  
  
• Emily Wolfe put all the current material on the Swim Team pages.
  
  
• Emily Wolfe has received “a ton” of stuff about the Medical Needs Foundation and she and Sally Santiago implemented it. Included is a pdf form for apply for medical assistance.
  
  

Discussion and Action Items

• We still need pictures of the School Board members. Sally Santiago had arranged to go to the School Board meeting in September to take the pictures but the session had to be rescheduled for the October meeting.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer talked to Gary Webb, the Borough Manager, about the searchable ordinance database. The Borough is moving on recodifying the ordinances. Corrections to the ordinances uncovered in the process are being drafted by the Borough Attorney and will then be passed by the Borough Council. After the Borough Council has approved them, the entire collection of ordinances will be installed on the web site of the company doing the work. They will have a search engine to navigate through them. At that point, we can add a link to the search engine and we will be done. This probably will not happen for several months. Webb assured Andy it would happen before the end of the year.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer still has reservations about the quality of the search engine’s user interface. He was concerned that the search engine would not look like the search engines out on the web that people are used to (e.g. Google or Altavista) and people will not be able to use it easily. We will revisit this issue when the project is completed and the site is operative.
  
  
• The Borough has engaged a consultant, Carisa Wangsness, to prepare a “Residents Guide” to be distributed in printed form to Mountain Lakes homeowners. There is a desire to put the material also on the Borough web site. It is expected that Wangsness will provide the guide in Adobe pdf form and we can install it as-is on the web site.
  
  
• Fran Patten has taken over the School’s Technology Office replacing Elle Douglass who has retired. In addition, the new School Superintendent started on July 1. We now need to approach them about pointing the mtlakes.org domain toward the Borough site. The committee was concerned when they were told that the schools have embarked on giving every teacher an e-mail address in the mtlakes.org domain. Andy Bulfer pointed out that this is not necessarily a conflict. The teachers could use mtlakes for their e-mail domain and still have www.mtlakes.org point to the Borough web site. Nevertheless, the committee was concerned that the School Board might not follow through on their commitment to route mtlakes.org to the Borough site and get another domain, say mtnlakesschools.org that more clearly connotes the schools. This domain would be hosted on the Briarcliff web server and be managed by the school technology staff as is done today. It would be accessible from the Schools section of the Borough site. George Jackson will follow up immediately with Kate Lareau.
  
  
• We still need to get more information about the recreation program on the web site.
  
  
• Sally Santiago was unsuccessful in getting a link for Hub Lakes to put on the Community page. It is now moot for this year.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer has not made any progress on the Community Calendar.
  
  
• Emily Wolfe has not yet had any luck getting information about the Lake Drive Education foundation.
  
  
• Sally Santiago volunteered to develop and install a page for the Medical Needs Foundation as a Type 1 organization. The Spirit 5K event will be held Nov. 3. It would be nice to be able to put their brochure on as a pdf.
  
  
• We still need to figure out a way to weed out or replace obsolete material on the web site. A formal effort to do so will be deferred until later in the fall after all the Committees have organized and become active.
  
  
• It appears the Nite Owls, an offshoot of the Town Club, have made other arrangements to host their web site. We had received a request from them to host their web content on the Borough Site. The Committee discussed at the July meeting and decided to grant permission for them to be a Type 3 organization. Now it seems it won’t happen, at least immediately.
  
  
• We need to include material on Gary Webb. It is desired to have a picture and bio. The Borough Manager should be first on the Borough Hall page. Emily Wolfe will obtain a bio and put the material on the Borough Hall page. One suggestion was to have side-by-side pictures of him when he was a Philadelphia Eagle and him today or perhaps an animated gif that morphs from the Eagle picture to a current picture.
  
  
• It was decided to put all the School Reunions on a separate page and put a link to it on both the Community and Links pages (where they are now) and the Schools page. It was felt that people may naturally look on the Schools page and they should be there for ease of finding it.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer mentioned that interest was expressed about an old-timers mailing list. There was discussion of perhaps making some type of newsgroup or bulletin board system instead where people could post messages and they could be read by anyone. There wasn’t consensus. It was agreed that none of these suggestions are a particularly high priority.
  
  
• A new person in town, Gerry Libertelli has offered to volunteer for web-related work. He says he is an experienced professional in this field. Andy was asked to invite him to the next meeting.
  
  
• Someone mentioned that the HOME mouse-over image on the front page is broken. Andy Bulfer will investigate.
  
  
• George Jackson urged that all the Education Foundations be accessible from the Schools page. This includes the Mountain Lakes Education Foundation and the Lake Drive Education Foundation. George felt that is the most natural place for them. Andy Bulfer will implement.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer reported that Penny Leman is working on updates to the Garden Club page. The committee was pleased since the Garden Club material is very outdated. When we receive it, Sally Santiago will format it and install it. Everyone felt that the Garden Club page is very attractive, despite being out-of-date.
  
  
• The Town Club has contacted us requesting that we set up a page on the Borough website for Town Club. They wish to be a Type 1 organization for which the website Committee sets up a page. The contact is Jean Cooper. Cooper will put together a list of contacts and a mission statement. Sally Santiago will contact her and work with her to obtain the information. Emily Wolfe will install it on the site. The Town Club also publishes a short (4 page) monthly newsletter. They want to know if they can put this on the website each month. The committee agreed to do so. The thought is we would give them a login and let them FTP it to the site. Sally will tell Cooper to contact Andy Bulfer.
  
  
• George Jackson was concerned about the navigation characteristics of the Police page. Some improvements were suggested that Emily Wolfe will implement.
  
  
• The Dept. of Public Works is a major area that is not yet represented. They are responsible for water, roads, sewers, recycling, leaves and brush. They touch all of our lives. We need to get material about them. Andy Bulfer will put together an outline of what we need and send it to George Jackson and Gary Webb.
  
  
• Joe Mullaney is currently researching the history of the Mountain Lakes Fire Department. He is also working on a mission statement. He is going to send some photos of the trucks and the members in action at a recent drill at the Morris County Fire Academy and some Fire Prevention and Safety tips. He asked us to put on a notice about a car wash and bake sale. Andy Bulfer will do it.
  
  
• George Jackson pointed out two errors in the census data page. Andy Bulfer will fix it.
  
  

The next meeting will be held on Oct. 10, 2001.

Andy Bulfer,
Chairman

The types of content are: