Our Commitment
We commit to a technology overhaul designed to leverage greater efficiencies, cost savings and, most importantly, better channels of communication with residents. This overhaul should also examine whether improved telecommunications infrastructure might help diversify and grow our local economy given the acceleration of technology-based remote work due to the pandemic. This effort is best driven by the Village, ideally in partnership with other agencies like the School and Library, as it is the economic and social hub of the community.
John and Roger are well-prepared to lead this task given John’s career in creating telecommunication solutions, particularly for non-profits and government agencies, and Roger’s extensive experience in project and engineering management.
Did you know?
Residents are probably unaware the Town and the Village share a single connection to the Internet. On paper this may appear as a noble cost savings effort, but in fact it is an inhibitor of technology use for the Village.
Case in point: From the start of the pandemic, the Village Board’s “virtual meeting” relied on live streaming through Facebook which created assorted audio and video technology challenges for residents. These difficulties reached a crescendo moment in August 2020 when the Village Board’s Facebook-streamed meeting was forced to be canceled due to the signal dropping. Ultimately the problem was a lack of bandwidth, or speed, of the shared Internet connection. The short-term solution was to contact the Internet provider (Spectrum) and request a faster service. However, the Village was hindered from placing the order for the upgrade because the Town is the “billing party” and thereby controlled the process for placing the order with Spectrum. The service upgrade was further delayed by the ministerial requirements for a Town Board resolution to be passed before the Town could call Spectrum.
It is critical that a municipality have full control of its technology, not only to avoid the mishaps described above, but to be positioned for Federal and State funding to mitigate the “digital divide” many residents experience living in rural counties, towns and villages described in John’s article from a few months ago.