A meeting of the Mountain Lakes Web Site Committee was held on December 14, 2005 at the Mountain Lakes Borough Hall.  In attendance were Clive Knowles, Mark Watrous, and Chairman Andy Bulfer.  Absent were Emily Wolfe, Council Liaison Ralph Loveys, and Jud Breslin.  A member of the public, Wendy Vandame also attended.

Activities Since Last Meeting

• Andy Bulfer removed outdated material and cleaned up the front page.  He also put on two photos of Christmas trees, one of the "Critter Tree" at the Library designed by the Mountain Lakes Garden Club, the other of the Borough Christmas Tree at Kaufmann Park.  The page selects one of the two at random for display each time the front page is accessed.
  
  
• Mark Watrous installed the Chili Cookoff information provided by the Recreation Department on the Recreation pages.
  
  
• Clive Knowles changed the dates and dollar amounts for dog and cat licenses based on a request from Robin Steele.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer received the December HSA Bulletin.  As usual, it was in one single large pdf file.  Since we display it on the Web site in six sections, Bulfer split up the file, extracted out the jpg cover, and installed them all on the Web site.
  
  
• Mark Watrous worked with Luann Pollack to re-enable the MAC pages. The Committee had removed the link to them on the Community page because of staleness.
  
  
• Clive Knowles and Mark Watrous worked on the school closing notices (see below)
  
  
• Andy Bulfer cleaned up the Library page and installed new versions of the Audio and Video Catalogs using information provided by the Library.
  
  
• Mark Watrous worked on the Minutes Upload capability (see below)
  
  

Minutes Upload

Mark Watrous reported that the Meeting Minutes Upload capability had been completed and tested.  This allows committee heads to upload their own meeting minutes to the Web site without the need for Web Committee involvement.  It is currently being used by the Borough Clerk for Borough Council meeting minutes and agendas.  Watrous reported that he has offered it to several other organizations including:

1. Woodlands Management Committee,
2. Lakes Management Committee,
3. Environmental Commission,
4. Recreation Commission,

Watrous said that Jerry Uhrig, chair of the Woodlands Management Committee, declared that he would begin using it immediately.  Watrous has not heard from the other committees heads.  It was suggested that he add the Shade Tree Commission to the list.  The Committee also asked Watrous to contact the Borough Clerk for suggestions of other committees that routinely do minutes and may be interested. 

Schools Emergency Closing Notifications

The first snowfall occurred and the first attempt to use the schools closing notification on the Notice Board worked successfully although some startup issues were exposed which required manual intervention.  One problem was the software, designed assuming the closing decision would be made in the early morning hours, got confused when the decision was the night before.  Another issue involved incorrect file permissions.  Clive Knowles reviewed the issues, reasons and the actions he is taking to address them.

In addition to Knowles' planned changes, the committee suggested modifying the shell script overnight_work (the program that causes the notice to be removed at the end of the day) to check and change if necessary the file permission settings on the relevant files.  Mark Watrous will look into it.

Knowles reported that Fran Patton, the schools representative that initiates the notice, is retiring.  Knowles will contact her replacement, Mark Huber, to explain what he has to do.

Tax Data on the Web

Mark Watrous reported that he had discussed putting preliminary tax reassessment information on the Web site with the town's tax-assessor, Rick DelGuercio.  This had been a strong request at the meeting on Oct 10 at MLHS.  Watrous and DelGuercio agreed that after the letters go out to all property owners, DelGuercio will supply the information and Watrous will install it.  It will be in the form of several pdf files sorted in various ways.  There will be descriptive material and caveats that will be drafted by Watrous and approved by DelGuercio.

There was brief discussion of whether the pdf format was appropriate since it does not permit reading the data into one's computer to analyze it.  However, for several reasons, the committee decided to approve the proposal.

Some on the Committee wondered how we will inform the community of the existence of tax information on the Web site since the deadline for the Jan HSA Bulletin has passed and the next opportunity will be Feb -- too late. Several options were discussed including putting a notice on the physical bulletin board outside of Borough Hall.

Wendy Vandame suggested providing a forum for residents to discuss the data such as bulletin board or blog.  The Committee did not disagree but the issues of technology, human resources needed to implement, and the requirement of a moderator were thought to be too high a hurdle.  Mark Watrous will look into what if any bulletin board capabilities are provided by GTI.

Recreation Pages

The recreation pages are terribly out of date.  This has been an ongoing issue with the Committee.  We need someone from either the Borough or the Recreation Committee to be assigned to work with us on them.  Andy Bulfer will discuss it with Ralph Loveys.

HPC Pages

Several months ago, the HPC had contacted the Web Committee with a number of ideas regarding additional content and format.  We encouraged them but so far they have not gotten back to us.

Review of Past Items

• Guidelines on Notice Board for timing and length -- Clive Knowles urged that additional words were not needed and the Committee agreed.
  
  
• Garden Club -- Work on this had been proposed but may have fallen in a crack.  Mark Watrous will check.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer has not yet added to the HPC pages a seminal speech by John Steen to the Borough Council.  We recently received a second request to install it from the HPC who had themselves been pestered by Steen.
  
  

New Discussion Items

• The Committee discussed whether the content on the Home Page should be centered on monitors with high screen resolution.  It was decided to do so and Mark Watrous will implement.
  
  
• It was decided to resurrect the Beach/Tennis Tags proposal from last year.  Andy Bulfer will begin after the first of the year.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer has begun working on a "Forms Center".  This is a web page that contains printable forms for various Borough applications and licenses.  The idea is to make all the forms easier to locate.  Many forms are already on the Web site but are scattered.  Longer term, there are several forms that need to be added.  There are some schools forms too but the schools material is separate and the Committee did not know how to handle this aspect.
  
  
• Wendy Vandame requested a slide show of pictures of town to show to potential UN Weekend guests.  The Committee already has a number of pictures of town: sunfish on the lake, Boulevard path, schools, ML Club, Memorial Day, historic photos, etc.  and more could be taken (not now, in the Spring).  The Committee was open to the idea but felt there was no urgency.  Vandame said she would help in providing and selecting the pictures.
  
  

Date for Next Meeting

The next regular meeting will be on Jan 11, 2006 at Borough Hall.

Andy Bulfer,
Chairman