A meeting of the Mountain Lakes Web Site Committee was held on March 15, 2006 at the Mountain Lakes Borough Hall.  In attendance were Clive Knowles, Mark Watrous and Chairman Andy Bulfer.  Also attending was a potential new committee member, Nilesh Shringarpure.  Absent was Borough Council Liaison George Jackson.

Introductions

Nilesh Shringapure introduced himself and briefly described his computer and information technology background.  Shringapure said he moved to Mountain Lakes last summer and lives on Raynold Rd.  There was general discussion of how the committee functions and what is required of members.  Andy Bulfer emphasized that the Borough Council must approve new committee members.

Activities Since Last Meeting

• Andy Bulfer received the March 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 the jpg cover, and installed them all on the Web site.
  
  
• Mark Watrous put on two applications for summer recreation employment provided by Recreation Director Denise Brennan.
  
  
• Clive Knowles converted the SMAC document provided by Health Commission Secretary Robin Steele and put it in the Health Clinics page.  He also edited the notice on the Notice Board to add a link to the material.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer sent an e-mail to Schools Superintendent John Kazmark reminding him that any Board of Education notices on the physical bulletin board can also be put on the Web site Notice Board.  Kazmark appeared to be receptive and delegated responsibility for implementation to two of his staff.  So far, nothing has changed however and no School notices have appeared on the Notice Board.
  
  
• Mark Watrous put on the final tax reassessment data provided by Tax Assessor Rick Del Guercio
  
  
• Clive Knowles worked with Susan Marshall to make desired changes to the Shade Tree Commission members page.
  
  
• Since the Emergency Management Committee is not really open to new members, Andy Bulfer took it off the volunteer form at the request of George Jackson.
  
  
• Mark Watrous put up new pages for the Boy Scouts.
  
  
• Clive Knowles finished the Garden Club pages including adding graphics from the invitation to their floral design program at the Frelinghuysen Arboretum.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer asked George Jackson to review and update the FAQs page.  Jackson agreed to do so but has been out of town and hasn't gotten to it yet.
  
  
• Mark Watrous made some technical changes to the front page to remove preload statements for images that are no longer there.
  
  
• Clive Knowles did a number of small items on the Notice Board, generally watched over it, and resolved minor issues as they arose.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer fixed health Clinics link on Borough page which somehow had gotten broken.
  
  
• Clive Knowles encouraged a number of people to use the Notice Board and instructed them on it's use.  Among them were representatives of the AAUW.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer updated e-mail addresses of Health Commission members
  
  
• Andy Bulfer changed e-mail forwarding on the Shade Tree Commission e-mail address shadetree@mtnlakes.org at the request of Shade Tree chairman Susan Marshall
  
  
• After a telephone conversation with Borough Clerk Christina Whitaker, Andy Bulfer rewrote the article on Marriage Licenses/Certificates to bring it up to date.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer received and added several Borough forms to the new Forms Center.  The Forms Center has still not been activated because there are a number of forms missing including those for the police, municipal court, and construction dept.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer replaced the front-page picture of the Tower Hill Sled Run with a new "Volunteer" image provided by Emily Wolfe.  The picture is quite lovely and far superior to the one Wolfe talked Bulfer out of using.
  
  
• The Tower Hill Sled Run photo with a link to its background in the history section apparently was well received by the public.  The Committee received an e-mail from a resident who had seen the photo and decided to check it out with his son after the big snowstorm.  To his surprise, there were about two dozen people there with sleds--and even a few wooden toboggans--running the slope from top to bottom.  He said he asked a few people, and they said they had just heard about the sled run from the article on the town Web site!
  
  
• Andy Bulfer brought the Business Directory completely up to date.  The goal of the Business Section is to be a service to businesses located in town (businesses pay taxes too and the town Web site should try to support them) and to residents looking for a local product or service.  To accomplish that two-fold purpose, the Business Section combines those businesses that are located in zip code 07046 with those that have purchased an advertisement in the Mountain Lakes Women's Club Telephone Directory.  The businesses who have purchased an ad are listed in bold and are supposed to have a thumbnail of the ad next to them.  Thus an additional benefit of the Business Section is it could make the Womens Club's ads more valuable.

  To update the directory, Bulfer got the businesses in zip 07046 from RefUSA (a library database) and the businesses in the telephone directory by scanning the listing in the book.  He then integrated the two files and eliminated the dupes.  Adding the ad thumbnails is not done yet.

• Andy Bulfer worked with HPC archivist Pat Rusak to scan a recently discovered trove of old house pictures including several streets we did not have before.  Bulfer and Rusak spent a Sunday afternoon scanning some 53 photos including houses on Bellvale, Briarcliff, N. Briarcliff, Boulevard, Condit, and Elm.  There are still more to be done including Dartmouth and Bulfer & Rusak plan more scanning sessions in the future.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer pruned a large number of unused and obsolete image files from the site.  It is important to keep only files that are actively used since we are charged for disk usage.  Identifying and discarding unused files is challenging for the committee since there are over 4300 files on the site including 2338 image files.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer wrote and submitted an article for the April HSA Bulletin,
  
  
• The Committee received a message from Sarah Coyle, a former Mountain Lakes resident who currently lives in Wisconsin.  She asserted that the old house picture labeled 11 E.  Shore Rd is actually 15 E.  Shore Rd.  She should know since she lived in that house from 1978 - 1983.  Andy Bulfer drove by, checked it, and confirmed that she is correct.  The original photographs are labeled as 11 Shore Rd. so somehow long ago either they were mislabeled or the address was changed.  Bulfer made the appropriate change to the Web site and informed the HPC. 
  
  

Tax Data on the Web

As mentioned above, Mark Watrous reported that tax-assessor Rick DelGuercio provided final data on the tax reassessment results.  The Committee felt the material is not proving as popular as the preliminary data that was posted in December.  Perhaps it is because a notice was not put on the physical bulletin board outside of Borough Hall.  With the apparent lessened interest, the Committee decided to remove the gaudy link to the data on the Home Page on April 1.  The data will remain on the Web site, but the link will be less obtrusive.

Review of Past Items

• To date, a total of three people have volunteered using the on-line volunteer form -- less than we had hoped but definitely helpful.  Andy Bulfer's article for the April HSA Bulletin also mentioned it so there may be more in the future.
  
  
• The Recreation Section is still so out of date as to be an embarrassment.  Although the Recreation Director has promised on numerous occasions to provide updates, so far the Committee has received nothing except the two summer job applications.
  
  
• The Committee is still trying to find out more about RSS and whether it could be used for distributing notices or school closing notifications.  RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication" and it is a new technology.  The Committee asked Nilesh Shringarpure to investigate further.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer has not made enough progress on the new Forms Center to make it visible on the Web site. The Forms Center is a web page that contains printable forms for various Borough applications and licenses.  The idea is to make all the forms available and easier to locate.  Some forms are already on the Web site but are scattered and there are more forms that need to be added.  All forms will be printable in pdf format and will be organized by department.  We have the technology to make each form field "hot" so that a user will be able to pull the form up on their screen, type in the content in each field, and then print out the form with the fields neatly filled in.  Beside the links on the Forms Center there will also be links to the forms on the relevant subject matter pages.

  The Committee is still waiting for the Borough to provide the forms for the Police Dept, Municipal Court, Tax Collection Dept and Construction Dept.  When these are received, we will activate the Forms Center.
  
  

• The Committee had requested last time that Andy Bulfer search the site for files containing 2005 (and 2004, 2003, etc.).  He hasn't gotten to it yet.  The Committee plans to divide up the list and review each file to see if it is out of date.
  
  

New Discussion Items

• Prior to going to the new server last Spring, every member of the Committee could log onto the server using a secure technology called ssh.  With the new server, our ISP GTI locked out all but Andy Bulfer because of concern for a specific security threat.  Bulfer recently contacted them again and this time they gave both he and Mark Watrous ssh access.  That leaves only Clive Knowles without it and we surmise that GTI is reluctant because Knowles uses a narrow-band modem that doesn't have a consistent IP address.
  
  
• We had been having trouble with file permissions getting mysteriously changed on the home page which prevented the Notice Board from operating.  GTI denied having anything to do with it.  The Committee agreed that the problem appears to have gone away.
  
  
• As mentioned above, Mark Watrous removed most of the image preload statements from the front page.  Andy Bulfer was concerned that some should not have been removed.  Watrous said he would look into it and restore those that are appropriate.
  
  
• Clive Knowles volunteered to update all the Borough Committees and Commissions members using data that had been given to Andy Bulfer several weeks ago by Borough Clerk Christina Whitaker.  This is a time-consuming job and Chairman Bulfer thanked Knowles for volunteering.  Knowles will call George Jackson to find out his favorite drink and then do the updates.
  
  
• Andy Bulfer asked Mark Watrous to get the e-mail traffic report working.
  
  

Date for Next Meeting

The next regular meeting will be on April 12, 2006 at Borough Hall.

Andy Bulfer,
Chairman