Patty,  I would like to see more clerks & treasurers on the muninet so that
we would have a quick and efficient way of reaching each other.  Playing
phone tag and trying to call a number of people through the day takes a lot
of time.  By putting your thought out there once and having a number of
people read and respond, makes the information reach more people.  It's
great.

I feel those who are leary of this technology would benefit a great deal
from having someone come directly into their office to help them understand
and learn how this great tool works.

I am fortunately from a town where the listers have made copies of all
their property cards which I have in notebooks in my vault by parcel
number.  This is the one piece of information that most attorneys want.  It
is not a big effort to copy one of these cards along with any other
information you are copying for a searcher.  Any card that is updated, gets
replaced in my notebooks. This way noone is handling the pencil copies but
the listers.  This is helpful to the searcher as well as the listers as
they do not have to come in as often.


At 08:10 PM 3/14/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Hello to Listers and to Town Clerks:
>I would like to ask you to please respond to this with your opinions and
>comments, if you would please.
>Two reasons:
>The first reason is that I've been trying to find funding for the
>continuation of the Town Officers' Connectivity Project where the rural ext.
>service has been  working to get towns rudimentary training to get local
>gov't on line and somewhat saavy with the net.  Those of us who are on line
>recognize the value and the ever-increasing uses and education available
>once we've broken the "ethernet" barrier.  This, for example, is an example
>of what I'm talking about.  The committee I testified before didn't think it
>was necessary and that local gov't types didn't need to learn or didn't want
>to learn. I'm hoping you can respond with short notes about the values of
>being on-line, how you use this tool, what you like about it, what you
>usually do with it, etc.  anything and it can be very informal.  I'd like to
>get us all on line, wouldn't you?
>The second reason is a bill that has come before the Local Government
>Committee.  It is H468.  This bill would require that municipal public
>records, specifically listers' cards and zoning records be available for
>inspection by the public during the hours that the town clerk's office is
>open.
>Now, I must say, up front, that as a town clerk who has the faith and trust
>of my lister's, it's a fine thing that I'm able to access their cards. We're
>such a small office, and they are part-time at best, but I only have access
>to their cards because they've let me.  They're filled out in pencil and we
>are getting around to computerizing them....but not quite yet...
>The bill is sponsored by a legislator who is also a lawyer.  It must be
>difficult sometimes when searching records that certain public records
>aren't available when she needs them.
>However, I struggle with state laws that tell local government officials,
>(duly elected, I might add), what to do. The co operation that exists
>between listers and clerks and others has been an option that has worked
>very well over the years.
>I realize that in larger towns and cities, listers are probably on some
>schedule of availability for the public and H.468 doesn't affect them, but
>many of our towns are small, and many of our listers are part time and
>sometimes seasonal....(spring).
>How do you feel about this?
>Listers, is it ok for you to make your records available when the town
>clerk's office is open?
>Yes? No? Why?
>Clerks, how do you feel about it?  I would think that some of you do not
>want to handle the listers work, but I may be wrong?  Any reasons you would
>want to?  Not want to?  Why?
>Finally, I will need this stuff by late monday night on this email address.
>[log in to unmask]
>or by the end of tuesday on the following email address:
>