RockNet: Budget Presentation 1998

City Budget Hearing Presentation 1998

Statement to the
City of Rockville Mayor and Council on
FY'99 Funding for RockNet

May 12, 1998

Good evening Mayor Krasnow, members of the Council, and members of the city staff. My name is Bob Ekman, and I am here tonight as the Vice President of RockNet, the Rockville Community Network. We thank the City for their support in FY98, and through the FY99 planning and budget process, we would like the City to continue and increase their support for RockNet.

During the past year, the City has given us space and Internet connectivity on the City's web server, through which RockNet has maintained an independent web site. Our web site has averaged over 600 visitors a month, who, after visiting our site, better understand why Rockville is a great place to live. We maintain an on-line calendar of events in Rockville and links to businesses, civic associations, religious organizations, and schools. During the recent City elections, we established a collection of non-partisan web pages for citizens to follow the candidates and issues.

The City has provided part-time labor to RockNet through the City web administrator position. From this labor, RockNet has received support for communications between the City, citizens and RockNet, including web site statistics reports, participation in our monthly meeting, and the publication of a RockNet flyer. The City has also provided email list servers and e-mail routing services for RockNet.

Our partnership is working and we would like it to grow. There are three specific areas where the City can help in FY'99.

We would like the City to continue to provide labor for RockNet through the sharing of a full time web administrator. We have tasks for a web administrator, which will currently take about ten hours a week. RockNet is a volunteer non- profit organization with most members having full time jobs elsewhere. The daytime efforts of a web administrator for RockNet are critical to the continuity of RockNet activities.

We would like the City to fund and help establish a separate web server system for RockNet. While the current system is working, our use of it is limited due to City security concerns and availability of the system administrator. With our own web server, we could open up our system to more citizen involvement.

We would like the City to investigate the performance of their current Internet service provider and implement improvements as soon as possible. We believe the current performance to be below the expectations of our intended audience -- the citizens of Rockville.

During the next year, with the help of the City, we plan to expand the Rockville Community Network. These plans include

Increased community content on our web site, such as web pages for the Greater Rockville Partnership,
Establishment of a threaded discussion groups, that will permit focused discussion on issues by citizens through the Internet,
Involvement of youth in special projects, such as web pages for a photo contest or kids art, and opportunities for community service hours, and
Support for computer activities at the Lincoln Park Center and the Senior Citizen Center.

Thank you again for your support in FY'98. We welcome all who want to participate in Rockville's future through the building of the Rockville Community Network.

Respectfully submitted,

Robert W. Ekman, for
RockNet, the Rockville Community Network

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