(3/22) Town looks to improve communications with residents
In response to requests from residents for a timelier posting of meeting agenda and meeting minutes, Burgess Barnes committed to several actions to improve communications with residents.
Barnes said he is looking for ways to improve the timeliness of posting on the town’s website. Currently all updates, including agenda and meeting minutes, are sent by the town clerk to the town’s contract webmaster who posts them. To speed things up, Barnes said he has asked the webmaster to train town staff so they can do it themselves.
"If we can update the site ourselves, this will allow us to notify residents in near real time to changes in meeting agendas," said Barnes.
Barnes noted that former Commissioner Dana Crum, who stepped down from the Council in 2023, had maintained the website for the town, but since her leaving, no one on the staff had the skill set to do it. Commissioner Case seconded Barnes goal of training the staff and said that he would not mind receiving the training as well.
In response to comments about updating the Woodsboro Facebook page, Barnes clarified that the Facebook page was not in fact the Town’s, and that the town had nothing to do with it. "In many ways it’s a thorn in our side," said Barnes. I encourage everyone who is looking for information to visit the town website, not a Facebook page.
Barnes pushed back on the idea of creating an official Facebook page, pointing to the history other local towns, most recently Thurmont, have faced with nasty posts that eventually resulted in the town being forced to turn off the comment function on their Facebook pages.
Commissioner Rittelmeyer seconded Barnes’ reservations, saying that he has heard representatives of other towns at MML meetings that they wished they never had set up a Facebook page. "It’s a black hole," he was told.
Speed cameras
Barnes told the Council that a new law is making its way through the assembly that will allow municipalities to station someone trained to read the cameras and issue the citations.
Under the current law, only law enforcement officials can read the cameras, which means Woodsboro has to outsource this to either the County or the town of Thurmont. "Given that the tickets are only $40, having to outsource the reading and issuing of the tickets to an outside party will greatly reduce any revenue the town might expect from the cameras," said Barnes.
Barnes noted that cameras can be placed in the vicinity of schools, which in the case of Woodsboro, Barnes said, means we can put them up pretty much anywhere on Main Street.
Having speed cameras in town will go a long way to reducing speeding on Main Street he said.
Missing 2023 town election results
At the March meeting, Gerald Sando inquired on the status of determining what ever happened to the 2023 Town election results.
Following the town clerk’s statement that "they were sent," Burgess Barnes committed to look into the issue and get to the bottom of it and resolve the issue.
