RockNet Home Page   City Budget Hearing Presentation 1997

Statement before the
City of Rockville Mayor and Council on
RockNet FY'98 Funding

June 2, 1997

Good evening Mayor Krasnow, members of the Council, City Manager Kukkhan, and other members of the city staff. I have had the pleasure of meeting most of you before but for those of you that don't know me, my name is John Herman. I am here tonight as Treasurer of Rocknet speaking on behalf of our Community Networking initiative on the Internet.

I want to strongly express our group's support for the City's plan to hire a webmaster and urge even more financial support for our efforts. More on this will be said shortly.

Rocknet's original core of volunteers first met about 20 months ago. In less than a year, we have established a visible presence on the World Wide Web and have begun a program of community outreach to bring many community organizations on to the Web. Our site now includes links to many of the organizations in Rockville that capture and define the vibrant character and diversity of our community. Through our efforts, and working with Dave Mays and the Maryland State Library System, we activated an existing fiber optic link that was not being used and acquired for the City of Rockville Internet connectivity and server that has an annualized value of approximately $18,000 and can serve thousands of Rockville residents.

Many of you have seen our web site already. I encourage you to visit it time and again because it will continue to grow and evolve. Even without our own domain and little to no publicity, our web site averages over a hundred visits per day. There is a link to us off the main city page and we will shortly have our own domain at rocknet.org, funded by our volunteers. All of this has been accomplished with volunteer effort. Part-time dedicated support by the City's webmaster will allow us to expand and maintain this effort and increase our focus on other aspects.

What is it that we hope to accomplish? This is not technology for technology's sake. Many positive goals can be achieved through Rocknet. I want to describe just three broad goals to you this evening: Promoting economic development, promoting civic involvement, and community development.

Specifically, our community outreach programs include:

It is central to Rocknet's mission that if community networking over the Internet is to succeed that it represent ALL of Rockville. To achieve this we must facilitate access by the underserved segments of our population primarily our senior citizens and those that are economically disadvantaged. This is an area where we'll need funding assistance.

In summary, we are asking the City to:

In the meantime you can be assured that the funds you invest in us will yield many dividends in achieving these shared goals. We will continue to do a lot with a little. Rocknet will continue to rely on volunteer efforts.

A final note... For others listening to me now, we welcome any and all who want to get involved in building Rocknet. You may send me email at jherman@bellatlantic.net or to the new webmaster @rocknet.org.

Thank you for your time. I am happy to answer any questions you may have.

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Last Updated: July 7, 1997