Otis Technology Committee
Minutes for Meeting of
September 21, 2009
Meeting called to order at 6:05 pm.
Present: Larry Gould, Robert Rocke, Lisa D’Orazio, George Mabee, Mary Anne Cicchillo
Minutes from June meeting were unanimously approved and accepted.
Southern Berkshire Technology Committee is being reorganized. They tried to join with the Hampden County Assn of Selectmen, or whatever the selectmen’s group is known as. This should give SBTC more weight for the September and January/February releases of stimulus money.
Massachusetts Broadband Institute has a map available on MBI.gov that shows the proposed path for the fiber optic network for the “middle mile” plan.
Since Howard was not present, Lisa moved that Howard be named the new chairman. No one seconded the motion. Instead, Bob said he had spoken with Howard earlier and Howard had expressly refused to chair the committee. It was restated that Bob Rocke is ineligible due to conflict of interest rules. Both Larry Gould and Lisa D’Orazio have too many other things on their plates to be the chairperson. That left Mary Anne and George, and neither stepped up so the position is still vacant.
Larry Gould had a concern that the Personnel Policy Manual did not adequately specify that computers attached to the Town Hall intranet would have their internet access monitored. It was recommended that Larry bring this up at the next All Boards meeting.
Other discussion continued, noting that the new PCs were purchased with the capability to upgrade to Windows 7 when it was released. Larry Gould proposed we do the operating system upgrade as soon as the release was out, but George, Lisa, and Bob all recommended the town wait at least six months for any wrinkles and kinks to be worked out. The three of us stated that Microsoft has a history of not issuing the Beta version into the final package, so it is best to wait for the initial launch to work out its bugs.
Also discussed: Google is wide open – the Federal government is going to the government version because it is more secure. And PC Tools Anti-Spyware is a different product from Anti-Virus software.
Meeting adjourned at 7:30 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Lisa D’Orazio, recording secretary
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