Four articles on the warrant address bringing some town technology into the 21st century. Three of those articles request a total of $22,100 to be raised and appropriated by taxpayers. The fourth, for new computer servers, requests $30,000 from the Stabilization Fund so that they can be purchased and installed in time for the move back into Town Hall.
Online dog licenses
Article 7 seeks funding for an online dog-license program. Town Clerk Janet Vellante said that the best feature of this program is that it would allow the animal control officer, police, and dispatchers to look up information about any dog at any time. It would also allow online purchasing of licenses for a nominal fee. Any paperwork, such as a rabies certificate, could be scanned or even photographed with a phone and emailed, and residents could choose to have the physical license and tags mailed to them. The program would also allow the town to automatically email license reminders and even let residents know that a rabies certificate is soon expiring. The cost of the software is $2,300, to be raised and appropriated.
New website
The eight-year-old town website may look fine to residents, but maintaining it is cumbersome and time-consuming, according to Town Administrator Tim Bragan. The company that provides the website software, Virtual Towns and Schools, has much newer software that provides a better interface for website updates, including the ability to put expiration dates on website items so they don’t need to be manually deleted.
Much of the town website updating falls to Julie Doucet, Bragan’s executive assistant, who said the new software would help her do that work more quickly. As a result, she could encourage all town departments to use the website more than they do now. On the user side, the website would have a new design that would enable residents to quickly get where they’re trying to go instead of following a long chain of links. It would also work better with tablets and phones. Article 10 asks voters to raise and appropriate $12,000 for the website upgrade.
New servers
The town wants to replace its 15-year-old servers, and Article 11 requests $30,000 from the Stabilization Fund to do that. Bragan said the company that maintains the servers told him that they are “well beyond their 10-year life span.” The servers host the town’s website, email, municipal finance software, and assessment software. Bragan also wants to upgrade the town’s email package to include enough addresses for all of the town’s boards and committees, either through a single board email address or individual member addresses.
GIS Mapping
Article 14 would provide funding for geographic information system (GIS) mapping of town water and sewer lines for the Department of Public Works (DPW), which currently uses hand-drawn maps to locate water and sewer lines and connections. GIS tools provide online maps that are easily edited and shared, and many software packages allow overlays so that multiple functions can share the same base map.
Bragan is meeting with the company that provides the Board of Assessors’ GIS software to determine if overlays would work with its system. If not, the town would use the existing GIS base data and purchase new software to do the overlays. Bragan said that in addition to the DPW, he has had a request from the Fire Department for a GIS map to locate fire hydrants and fire ponds. The Council on Aging has also requested a GIS map that could be used by the Fire and Police departments to determine the location of disabled residents or those using oxygen. The town is seeking $7,800 for this system, to be raised and appropriated.
