By Charley Falkenburg, Staff Writer
WEST WINDSOR In today’s electronic world, most municipalities in the state have their own websites for the convenience of its residents however it appears West Windsor’s “e-government” is better than most, according to a recent study.
Graduate students in public policy at the Monmouth University Polling Institute just finished a yearlong project that examined the websites of 540 municipalities in New Jersey. After judging criteria such as information and content, e-services and how well each encouraged public participation, the university recognized West Windsor as having one of the top 10 municipal websites in the state.
Although there are 566 municipalities in New Jersey, some of the smaller communities did not have websites and could not be included in the research project.
The acclaim seemed to be a pleasant, yet unexpected, surprise for Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh.
”I am very happy and proud because we’ve been putting in a lot of effort to organize our website to the point where people can understand what’s going on at town hall and helps them as much as possible,” said Mayor Hsueh.
Despite the award, the mayor thought there was room for improvement to make the site even more transparent and convenient. Thus, an e-government taskforce was created to make sure that the website stays current and offers even more to those with a mouse and web browser at hand.
Mayor Hsueh said there would be five group members: Councilwoman Kristina Samonte, Police Lt. Robert Garofalo, the township technology coordinator and two local residents. The group’s objectives are to include improving communication between the township and residents and making it easier for users to understand and complete various permit processes on the website.
Later on down the road, the mayor said he would like to see construction officials carry iPads so they could continuously make permit updates on the website in and out of the field throughout the day. He is also considering dabbling in the social media phenomenon of Twitter, a service that allows users to send messages of 140 characters or less..
”I always like to upgrade our information technology to make sure we have the most effective tools to communicate with the residents in town,” said Mayor Hsueh.

