LONG HILL WEBSITE ORIGINS 1996-1997

The Long Hill Township website was established after the Township had been approached by several parties during 1995 and 1996 proposing the creation of commercial web sites for the town. These sites would have been for-profit entities (for their operators) containing paid advertising on the site. The proposals would have provided the Township with having an informational website established without charge, but the Long Hill would not share in the commercial profits. A decision was made by the Township Committee to not go this route.

A subcommittee was established with Township Committee members Maryann Nergaard, Dorothea Kominos representing the Township and Larry Fast as a member of the public with web experience. Meetings were held during the summer months of 1996 and a preliminary non-commercial website based on the information in the print version of the Long Hill Township Community Guide went live during the fall of 1996.

VOLUNTEER WEB COMMITTEE 1997-1999

During 1997, several volunteers came forward offering to contribute their skills and time to enhancing the website. Under the supervision of Township Administrator Joe Manning, the volunteers enhanced the core architecture of the site established in 1996. The original volunteers, with additional input from Steve Kesselmeyer of the Long Hill Police Department were formally acknowledged by the Township in a certificate ceremony in 2001.

DENNIS SANDOW, WEBMASTER 1999-2003

During these years, volunteer Webmaster Dennis Sandow, a township resident, took over administration of the website from the web committee. Under Mr. Sandow's tenure as webmaster, the depth of the site increased enormously to over 350 pages. Mr. Sandow's donation of his time and efforts, itself built on the earlier site development work, is carried forward in today's site. The Long Hill Website twice received awards as the best municipal website in New Jersey during Mr. Sandow's years as webmaster.

2003-2004

In 2003 the RJM Computer Consulting Group, Inc. was retained by the Township to manage IT services. Administration of the website as well as other electronic infrastructure would become the responsibility of RJM. A meeting of the internet advisory committee as structured in the web enabling resolution of 2000 was held during the summer of 2003. A new, government domain name (www.longhillnj.us) was acquired for the Township. The proposed new website would reside on servers provided by the RJM Group. The webmaster position was incorporated, without additional compensation, into the Township Administrator's duties. Due to delays in the completion of the new town hall in 2003 and later delays in installations of the onsite servers, only minimal updates were made to the existing website.

In order to expedite the transfer and update of the website to the new server, and address complaints about the existing site's organization and known performance issues under some operating systems (including versions of Windows, Macintosh and Linux), original site author Larry Fast's media corporation was retained for the new site's coding work. The new site was constructed during the late summer of 2004 under the direction of the Administrator's office. Enough of the new site was posted by Labor Day week 2004 to allow for a public announcement. A website is never finished, but a substantial part of the site as directed by the administrator was completed during the fall of 2004.

2005

During 2005, a system of blog pages was implemented as an enhancement to the main site. This allowed a decentralized method of direct information posting by various township departments without going through the webmaster or the site's coding volunteer. Independently posted blog pages were created for the Administrator's office, Planning, Zoning, Clerk, Recreation and the Long Hill Police Department. Other departments will come on line as necessary. The blogs are used for the posting of agendas, news releases, recreation announcements, and timely Township information.

Also during 2005, Long Hill's combined ordinances and codes were digitized and made a linked part of the website.

WEBSITE AWARDS

In 2006 Long Hill Township was the recipient of an Honorable Mention Award presented by the Rutgers Center for Government Services, The New Jersey Municipal Management Association and the New Jersey League of Municipalities. The Township website is a major factor in how the Public Information award recipients are determined. Unlike previous award years, the competition for recognition was against the hundreds of other municipalities with websites. The stiff competition enhances the value and legitimacy of this latest award.

In 2001 and 2002, the first years that the category had been established, the Long Hill website received recognition as the best municipal website in the competition by the Rutgers Center for Government Services and the New Jersey League of Municipalities.  2001  2002.

We extend our thanks and appreciation to the Township Committee for their support through the Website Sponsorship Resolution.  We can't list all the township employees who developed information and helped with the reviews in their subject area.  However, it is appropriate to recognize those who went beyond the ordinary call of duty to make this site a success. Joseph Manning, Long Hill Township Administrator Arline Most and Barbara Napholtz, Long Hill Township Public Library, Jerry Testa, Public Works Director, and Mario Bonaccorso who took many of the pictures on this website.

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