The January meeting of the Mountain Lakes Web Site Committee was held on January 14, 2004 at Borough Hall. In attendance were Emily Wolfe, Chairman Andy Bulfer and newly appointed Borough Council Liaison, Blair Wilson. Borough Manager Gary Webb also attended at the Committee's invitation to discuss the community communication item described below.

Activities Since Last Meeting

• Andy Bulfer prepared a concrete proposal (Attachment 1) for the Web site to carry notifications of emergency school closing on the front page. The objective would be to make it easier for residents to know about emergency closings, delayed openings, or early closings.
  
  
• Bulfer subsequently met with Dr. John Kazmark, the school superintendent, to discuss it. Kazmark appeared to need no convincing. He told Bulfer that after the electrical blackout, they had discussed at one of his staff meetings putting notifications on the Web but nothing ever happened. Kazmark committed to using it if it were developed. He said he usually makes the closing decision by 4 am in concert with Mark Presina. After the decision is made, a series of phone calls go out to staff and radio stations. Fran Patten, head of the School's Office of Technology, is on the list to be called and would be the one to activate the system by the Web form. The ball is now in Bulfer's court to implement it.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer received several completed HPC recollections questionnaires from former residents, which he installed in the Voices of the Past section. In contrast to the Oral Histories, these are the type where a past resident fills out a short e-mail questionnaire. There are now 37 such items on the Web site.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer developed a short history of the little theater that was once located in the backyard of 171 Boulvard, now the home of Frank and Pat Kelleher. It turns out that the little theatrical company that started there in the 1920s still survives to this day. It grew to become what is now the Barn Theater in Montville. Bulfer's write-up in the ML History section includes current pictures of the original building and of Mountain Lakes resident Arthur Stringer, a world-renowned author and first leader of the group. There is a public school named after him in London.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer received electronically from Kate McKulla the December Home and School Bulletin and later from Kathy Watrous the January Home and School Bulletin and installed them on the Web site.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer installed updated Library acquisitions, books-on-tape lists, and video lists at the request of the Director of the Mountain Lakes Library. These are carried on the front page of the Library section and the Director feels they are quite popular. She says people use them to quickly browse what is new in the Library or to select a video to withdraw.
  
  
• At the request of Mary Ann Collins, Andy Bulfer brought the boat rack/rings material up-to-date for 2004.
  
  
• Emily Wolfe installed a new jpg, a beautiful colorized historic Mountain Lakes skating scene entitled "Let it Snow", on the front page for the winter season.
  
  

New Discussion Items

• Last time, a broad objective was adopted to do more to communicate with the community, particularly since it has been decided to halt publication of the Borough Newsletter. But what exactly does that mean and how can that be implemented? The following was discussed:
  
  
  • Establish a policy that no community-wide letters be mailed using the Borough's postal permit unless the material is available on the Web.
    
    
  • A project to display in the “What’s New” section, the material on the Bulletin Board (the physical one on the corner) has been discussed in the past but has always faltered because it appears too burdensome for the Bulletin Board volunteers. It was decided to consult the members of the Bulletin Board committee. Blair Wilson will set up a meeting with them
    
    
  • We should try to have more information from key commissions and committees. We will investigate with Christina Whitiker whether minutes of these committees and commissions can be put on the Web site similar to the way Borough Council minutes are.
    
    
  • At the up-coming orientation meeting for new committee members, Gary Webb will emphasize the importance of putting committee reports and notices on the Web and instruct how to do it.
  
  
  
• Andy Bulfer presented a rough conceptual proposal (Attachment 2) for using the Web to order beach & tennis tags. The objective would be to make the process more convenient for residents since now they may only obtain tags by physically coming to Borough Hall during business hours. In contrast, ordering on the Web could be done 24x7 from the comfort of their home or office. Gary Webb said he would consider the proposal's practicality and legality.

Review of Past Items

Unfortunately, little progress has been made on the following older items:

• The Garden Club has requested we update their material including officers and events listing. However, Sally Santiago has not received anything. She will contact them again for the material
  
  
• Several of the Zoning/Planning Board application forms are out of date. Also, there is no e-mail address for use by the public to contact these boards. Louise Davis obtained the forms from Borough Hall as MS Word files but the committee has not made much progress in converting them to PDF and installing them in the Planning Board/Zoning Board sections. Andy Bulfer will take on the job of doing so.
  
  
• The new Master Plan update needs to be on the Web site. Louise Davis reported it is not extensive: a simple 1-2 page update. Davis had obtained it as an MS Word file but it may have fallen through the cracks. We will look for it and get it installed.
  
  
• The Dept. of Public Works is a major area that is not yet represented. They are responsible for water, roads, sewers, recycling, leaves, and trash. They touch all of our lives. The committee would like to have a section about them including who they are, how they are organized, what their day-to-day activities are, how to contact them, their equipment, a group picture, etc. No decision was made.
  
  
• This History section is rich in content from the early days of Mountain Lakes but has less material about other eras. Andy Bulfer said that the following people have volunteered to prepare write-ups:
  
  

  1.	Change of Borough Government	Duke Smith
  2.	Defeat of the pumped storage reservoir in the Tourne	Lynn Goldswaithe
  3.	The Synthatron story	Sandy Batty
  4.	Getting Sewers into Mountain Lakes	Ruth Harrison

  
  
  We have received write-ups from Smith and Harrison and they are installed. Andy Bulfer will pester Goldswaithe and Batty to complete their material. In the past, the committee has made several additional suggestions for material including: Building the High School (expert: Hoke Briessendon), Transformation of Lake Drive School into a school for the deaf, the story of UN Weekend, and the story of the GAA show.
  
  
• The committee would still like to have links from particular old house pictures to the oral histories of past residents of that house. Andy Bulfer will add this to his To-Do list.
  
  

  Date for Next Meeting

  The next regular meeting will be on Weds Feb 11, 2004 at Borough Hall.

  Andy Bulfer,
  Chairman