By: Graham Strouse
WEST AMWELL — A few months ago, Nance Palladino was learning the ropes of Web design from sixth-graders.
Now the township committeewoman finds herself in the unlikely role of assistant Web master for the municipality’s official — but as yet unnamed — Web site.
The site, which should be launched by early summer, came to be thanks to the combined efforts of, among others, Ms. Palladino, Web master-to-be Carol Wilson, Rich Abate of 2Star.com and Martha Kubick’s sixth-grade gifted and talented class at West Amwell Elementary as unpaid consultants.
“At first it seemed so foreign to me. Now it seems so logical,” said Ms. Palladino, who spent several late morning sessions watching Ms. Kubick’s sixth-graders glide through oceans of virtual information. “They can (say in) four or five what you can get across in 25,” she said. “It’s all about saving time. You save time shopping; you save time writing.”
Expect the site to be a little on the sketchy side, initially. Look for a municipal phone directory, department listing with brief descriptions and the times and locations at which municipal employees are available and offices open. Committee agendas and minutes of meetings should follow shortly.
“I have an outline; there’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 items on it,” Ms. Palladino said. “It just gives a very light description of what the departments are and when they meet. At least that’ll be something. At least they’ll know whom to contact and when to get in touch with them.”
The township, which originally considered operating under the school’s Web site, decided to carve out its own place in cyberspace. The only question was, and is, where? Does it register as a dot-com or a dot-gov?
Ms. Palladino would prefer the latter for the sake of consistency. Most government Web sites, after all, do use “gov” as a suffix, she pointed out.
“If we can get the www.westamwelltwp.gov, we’ll go with it,” Ms. Palladino said. “Then I’ll have to go ahead with the two-year registration and the $19.95 a month registration fee.”
Another possibility would be west.amwell.com. As of press time, Ms. Palladino is waiting to hear from Mr. Abate, the Web designer who is orchestrating construction of the site.
Ms. Wilson, a retired Web designer, volunteered to manage the site after reading a story in The Beacon, when the committee first proposed acquiring some virtual real estate.
Ruth Hall, president of West Amwell’s Historic Preservation Society, also will serve as co-assistant Web master.
Initially, the site will feature links to the elementary school and the Hunterdon County Planning Board.
Plans for site expansion remain open-ended. Ms. Palladino, for one, would like to see the various municipal departments provide instructions to help citizens deal with “common problems” such as “If I want to put an addition on my house, where do I start?”
She said, “A lot of these things people could handle if they had some kind of format to go by.”
