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Todays Greenwich Roundup Editorial:
Forget About Tea Parties: Why can't we have e-Petitions here in Greenwich?
As Greenwich Roundup surfed the web he came across a town government that had an “ePetitions” section on their web page. This page was where residents could sign up to make their voice heard in support of particular issues.
Greenwich Roundup did a bit more Googling, and it seems that there’s quite a few local and county governments around the world that do this now, and Greenwich Round Up Thinks that it is an excellent idea for the town of Greenwich.
Greenwich Roundup thinks that an ePetitions would give the town's registered voters the chance to promote all manner of causes to First selectman Peter Tesei. How about an ePetition calling for calling for Frank "Glenville School Won't Be Finished Until October of 2009" Mazza to resign before he creates another Hamilton Avenue School Fiasco that will cost more town employees to lose their jobs.
However, here in Greenwich we probably will never see anything that innovative, as far as Greenwich Roundup can tell, the town's IT department will never offer an ePetitions system.
Which is not surprising since many do not think that digital engagement is really the Town Of Greenwich's speciality.
Do you remember how over a year and a half a go how the Greenwich's IT department was going to give every elected official and appointee an email address.
The reason for this was so that It would be easier for the towns taxpayers to file freedom of information requests emails that discussed town bussiness and were thus considered public documents.
Forexample if an RTM member or planning board member uses his own personal email address to discuss town business he or she has created a public record, that the town clerk has no access to.
So the Town Of Greenwich was going to set every elected and appointed town official with a town controlled email box.
A contractor was hired in early 2008. the system was tested almost a year ago, but the email addresses were never issued to RTM members or to political appointed board members.
The email service contract was agreed to, the money was spent, but Greenwich's It Department did not implement the project that First selectman Peter Tesei had called for.
Obviously, the incompetent Greenwich IT Department will never be able to handle an ePetitions page at the town's web site, because they can't even issue email addresses to public board members.
That’s a bit of a shame, as there’s no shortage of contentious issues where a petition might be quite useful.
An ePetition system that counted only votes from Greenwich's registered voters would have been helpful on many recent town controversies such as the Cos Cob street addressing issue or the Byram park funding issue.
How about an ePetition on affordable housing at the Cos Cob Pwer Plant site or an ePetition for a Byram Police Substation.
Maybe an ePetition over if Cos Cob should let Chase Bank replace a resturant.
Time and time again Greenwich town officials have misfired and had to back away from initiatives, because they were not in touch with what the single family homeowners of our town really want.
Please See This Recent Greenwich Time Editorial:
If town officials didn't learn the lesson in March, they should have now: Consult those to be affected before moving forward with a policy that could have a fundamental impact.
Some weeks ago, public reaction caused the town to reverse course on rules that would have put new restrictions on mooring and related boating activities. Now an outcry from Cos Cob has brought a screeching halt to a plan -- initially presented as essentially a done deal -- to revise street addresses on East Putnam Avenue as early as this month. Townspeople and businesses were advised this had to go forward because of confusion the current address system was causing for emergency responders. The situation was a liability as well as a safety concern.
However, all that was changed within a day after vigorous objections were registered during a public hearing on the plan......
So in the absence of anything official.....
Maybe one of the local newspapers or one of the towns bloggers should set up a web page wit ePetition functionality.
Greenwich Roundup is evaluating the technical and financial options for doing this at the moment.
Greenwich Roundup has a lot of unfinished internet projects that he is now trying to get caught up on and is reluctant to start a new project.
But, if you have an idea for a petition to pilot the system and help get us going, send an email to GreenwichRoundup@gmail.com .
Or do you think ePetitions are a waste of time?
Any comments on this are welcome.
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