BY GINGER KOZLOWSKI

When it comes to getting access to public information, your best bet is often to go in person to the town hall, school district office or police department itself. But that is time consuming and difficult for many people. Going online is not only simple but available at any time.

The Right to Know Law does not specifically address electronic communication, since e-mail and the Internet did not exist at the time of its writing. Many towns and school districts do make minutes and other information available online. One police department in the 16 towns covered by Neighborhood News has even put its arrest logs online.

The law requires minutes to be posted within 144 hours (six days) of a meeting. Posting usually consists of pinning a printout to the bulletin board in a town hall, library or other public spot.

In the six years since Neighborhood News first took a look at what local governments make available online, things have changed significantly. Auburn, Allenstown, Candia, Epsom, New Boston and the Bow SAU didn’t even have Web sites at that time.

Today, every town and school district can be accessed online. Only the Hooksett Police Department has no Web page at all, while most police departments offer at least basic information through pages on a town Web site, and the Weare and Pelham police departments have their own complete Web sites.  In one unique twist, SAU 24 has video of a school board meeting right on its home page for all to view.

Most town sites post not only the minutes to the town council or selectmen’s meetings, they also include planning, zoning and other committee minutes.

Costs

Costs associated with Web sites can mount, but hosting one is not always expensive.

 In Auburn, Kate Lafond, administrative assistant to the Board of Selectmen and the person who updates and maintains the town’s Web site, said two years of Web hosting cost $48 and the town pays $8.99 annually to use its domain name.

In Weare, Town Administrator Fred Ventresco said they pay about $180 every two years to their Web host.

Keeping up the content

The big cost may be just keeping Web sites up to date. Someone has to put that content online. Lafond typically updates the Web site once a day.

“It takes a few minutes, depending on how much I need to post,” she said. “It’s fairly easy to do.”

Goffstown Town Administrator Susan Desruisseaux said the Web site’s design and maintenance are performed internally.

The minutes are uploaded to the site as soon as they are available and all press releases are sent to the town’s information technology worker.

“The economic development council originated it to get news out to attract business and industry to the town several years ago. It’s grown to provide more public information as time went on,” Desruisseaux said.

Lisa Cox, the Web site coordinator for SAU 53, said she spends anywhere from half an hour to multiple hours per week updating the content on their Web site. The district’s individual schools, she said, maintain their own Web sites.

“It is very up to date and accurate, as it’s maintained on a daily basis.  And I also feel that’s it’s visually appealing and easy to navigate,” Cox said, adding that the last time she updated the site was Thursday, Sept. 20.

Sandi Babson, webmaster for Hopkinton’s town site, said she oversees the updates made by 10 other people from different departments.

“Each department is responsible for updating their own department’s information,” she said. “It makes it easier because, as a webmaster, I wouldn’t necessarily know what’s out of date and what isn’t,” she said, adding that the police department update their logs on a monthly basis.

For the most part, she said, updates are made on time.

“We try to always meet that five-day Right to Know (period), just to keep everybody covered,” she said.

Unique features

Most sites provide the type of information you would expect to find on a town, school or police department. Some offer some unique features.

In Salem, the town runs a monthly photo contest, where contestants are asked to submit photos of the town reflecting a monthly theme. The winners are posted online and will become part of a calendar for the next year.

New Boston introduces itself as the “Gravity Center of the World,” thanks to Roger Babson and his Gravity Research Foundation located in the town.

The Hopkinton Web site is the only one offering police logs online, though the Salem Police Department is close to doing the same.