RockNet: Budget Presentation 1999

City Budget Request Letter 1999

May 27, 1999

City of Rockville Mayor and Council
111 Maryland Ave
Rockville, MD 20850

Dear Mayor and Council,

The Rockville Community Network (RockNet) has continued to provide service to the citizens of Rockville and the City government. We thank the City for their support in FY1999, and through the FY2000 planning and budget process, we would like the City to continue their support for RockNet.

During the past year, the City has provided RockNet space and Internet connectivity on the City's web server, through which we have maintained an independent web site. The City has also provided email list servers and e-mail routing services for RockNet.

Our web site is averaging over 100 visitors a day, 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. We have detailed information on the Y2K computer issues and health resources on the Web.

With FY1999 funding provided by the City, RockNet has purchased our own web server. We are in the process of placing it into service and hope to have it operational before July. This new server will allow us to increase our use of Web technology to better serve our neighbors. We will be permitting citizen organizations direct access to the server so they can manage their own web site. The City will host their web site on our web server until they can improve their system.

The City has continued to provide 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 support for our new web server.

RockNet has supported the City in their search for and hiring of a director of Information Technology. RockNet applauds this change in focus and the restructuring of staff to meet the technology needs of the City and citizens.

Our partnership is working and we would like it to continue. There are three specific areas where the City can help RockNet in FY2000.

We would like the City to continue to provide labor for RockNet through the sharing of a full time web administrator and web server support. We have tasks for a web administrator and support personnel, 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 and system support are critical to the continuity of RockNet activities.

We would like the City to fund $1000 worth of improvements to the new web server. There is security software we must buy and application software that we are considering for the server but we do not have a funding source. RockNet and the City will participate in the selection and use of this software.

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 users -- the citizens of Rockville.

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

Increased community content on our web site, such as web pages for citizen associations,

Establishment of a local web site search engine and the use of dynamic web applications,

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 FY1999. We welcome all who want to participate in Rockville's future through the building of the Rockville Community Network.

Respectfully submitted,

Robert W. Ekman
President, Rockville Community Network
phone: 301-340-9696
e-mail: bob.ekman@att.net

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