Town of Otis Technology Committee
Meeting Minutes
January 29, 2009
Present: Mary Anne Cicchillo, Robert Rocke, Ernest Lowell, Lisa D’Orazio
Not Present: Howard Levin, Larry Gould (called away)
· Meeting called to order at 6:32 pm
· The minutes from the November 26, 2008 meeting were unanimously approved.
· Robert Rocke informed committee members that the governor’s Massachusetts Broadband Institute did not appoint anyone from Berkshire County to the initiative. The closest member of the initiative committee is Linda Dunleavy from Franklin county. The Broadband Institute’s budget has remained uncut at around $40 million.
· The National Grid does not own any line poles in the Town of Otis, therefore their GIS pole locations have been completed for all of Berkshire county, with none listed for the Town of Otis. All of Otis’ poles are owned by Verizon, and Verizon has not complied with the request to provide us with a listing of the poles and their locations in town. This information is needed for the broadband FIOS initiative.
· The Otis Technology Committee discussed upgrading all town computers to Word 2003. Tech Soup can upgrade non-profit organizations for $25.00 per workstation. They hold the corporate license and assign each work station their key #.
· Lisa D’Orazio informed committee members she did not attend the December First Class Workshop. The workshop organizers expected all attendees to already have a user login and experience with the product before attending the tutorial – she did not have either.
· The Otis Tech Committee also discussed the need to replace the computers in the Assessor’s office this year. Also, the Recreation Dept., the Highway Dept., and the Fire Dept. need to have their computer equipment included in the Town’s inventory.
· Several town departments want to upgrade to Acrobat 8.0. The Technology Committee needs a list of who actually needs to use this for editing as each copy will run about $250.00 per workstation.
· At the next meeting, the Technology Committee plans to discuss Rules and Regulations for computer internet usage to protect the network from acquiring worms and viruses. Also, any workstation using the town network, must be owned by the town.
· The Town website is averaging approximately 500 hits per week.
· The next Otis Tech Committee meeting will be the third Monday of every month at 6:30 pm. Since Monday February 16, 2009 is a Holiday and the Town Hall will be closed, the next meeting has been scheduled for Feb. 17th.
· Meeting adjourned at 7:25 pm.
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