Minutes of 08/20/08

Approved 09/17/08

In attendance were Ken Curley, Bob Young, Lucy Edwards

The committee approved the minutes of 6/25/08.

Members reviewed the computer network support proposal from Portsmouth Computer Group, and the contract renewal proposal from Network Mgrs.  We discussed asking Pete Jones if he wanted to submit a proposal.

Bob Young will check on PCG’s references.  Ken talked about the positive aspects of hiring within town, since a resident would have some vested interest in controlling costs (would be a taxpayer), and would live nearby and be more available.  This would add value.  The group also was concerned that the larger firms tend to have a cookie cutter approach more suited for a business than a small municipality.

Should we find that it would be cost effective to hire Pete Jones, the committee would need to find a replacement for Pete The group felt we need someone with some communications expertise, since that is an area we will need to work on, especially for emergency management issues.  We could add two people and make the selectmen’s representative a non-voting member.

Ken moved to have Paul Martel, Town Administrator, solicit bids for network support contract from the vendors we discussed.  Lucy seconded.  We have an unsolicited proposal from PCG and a renewal 
proposal from Network Managers in hand.  The motion passed.

Bob Young indicated that the town now has one dedicated phone line to reach town hall, which doesn’t go into the queue. That way there is contact in an emergency that doesn’t get backed up and go into voice mail.  Ken wants to look at VOIP as a backup if the phone service should go down again, as it did when the Verizon substation was flooded.

We need to ask the fire and police departments if they want to be involved in the technology group.

There was some discussion of the project of putting invoices on the website, but no conclusion.

Questions we need to address are:

What is the web “persona” of the town on line?

1. How do we appear to someone who comes to our website?
2. Is the website updated properly?
3. Who is responsible for that?

Meeting adjourned around 9:15.

Next meeting according to the schedule will be Sept. 17th.

Respectfully submitted,
 Lucy Edwards, Secretary