A meeting of the Mountain Lakes Web Site Committee was held on Jan 17, 2006 at the Mountain Lakes Borough Hall.  In attendance were Chairman Andy Bulfer, members Clive Knowles, Nilesh Shringarpure, & Mark Watrous, and Borough Council Liaison Steve Shaw.  In addition, the following attended: Mayor George Jackson, Superintendent John Kazmark, Schools Technology Chief Mark Huber, School Board Member Emily Wolfe, Home and School Association President LaVonne Feigeles, and Borough Manager Gary Webb.

The major agenda of the meeting was to:

1. Discuss ideas for better and less expensive ways for the Borough and Schools to communicate with the community;
   
   
2. Discuss a particular broadcast e-mail system that the Web Site Committee had studied.
   
   

Because of the large number of guests and the importance of this agenda item, the meeting was devoted to it and all regular items were deferred to the following month.

The meeting began with a free and open discussion of the methods that are used to communicate now, including the Home and School Bulletin, and what could be improved.  It was generally agreed that ways to make communications more timely, effective, and inexpensive are desirable but no obvious consensus on what to do.

Next was a formal presentation by Nilesh Shringarpure of the ListPlex system offered by L-Soft International, Inc.  ListPlex is a robust, scalable, inexpensive, commercial service to send e-mails to everyone on a list.  An advantage of ListPlex is that it does not require new hardware, software, or personnel investments and the cost per message is low.

After the presentation, there was a wide-ranging discussion of the pros and cons of the system and how it could be used.

The following was decided:

1. Steve Shaw will discuss the results of the meeting and the issues raised with the Borough Council at their next meeting;
   
   
2. John Kazmark will set up a meeting with the provider of their telephone notification system to review its capabilities;
   
   
3. George Jackson will obtain a telephone number for a contact at the League of Municipalities and Andy Bulfer will call them to discuss what other towns have done.
   
   

Date for Next Meeting

The next regular meeting will be on Feb 14, 2007 at Borough Hall.

Andy Bulfer,
Chairman