Public email for our councilors and officials?
I recently wanted to email the town councilors about a concern I had. I went to the Hopkinton town website and was annoyed to find that none of their email addresses were listed. Our town manager’s email address was available, so I emailed him and requested him to email me back to let me know that he forwarded my concerns on to the council members. He never replied to me.
I decided to go on a search for the council member’s email addresses using various search engines and a little ingenuity to weed through all the trash. I successfully located four of the five councillor’s addresses (this was not an easy task) and sent them a copy of the concerns I had sent to the town manager. Unfortunately, one of the councillor’s addresses bounced immediately and the only response to the remaining three emails was from Barbara Capalbo.
She verified the other two addresses I had used were indeed invalid addresses and provided me the correct email addresses of Tom Buck, Bev Kenney, and Vinny Cordone. I then sent another copy of my concerns to the correct addresses and received a pleasant reply from Bev, but I never received a reply from Tom or Vinny.
Apparently Sylvia does not like her email being given out… and I can completely understand this. That is why I propose that the town provide publicly known email addresses for the town councillors and the other town officials both elected and not. They already own the domain name hopkintonri.org and the manager has an address already, so why hasn’t this been already done?
iamishmael said,
Monday 23 June 2008 at 13:29 UTC
I would be eternally grateful if you could forward those addresses to ishmael.comes.calling@gmail.com or post them. It would be a real public service!
njwashor said,
Monday 23 June 2008 at 14:18 UTC
As the email addresses are their private email addresses, I do not want to post them online, I will however share them with whoever needs them. Just email me or post on this message and I will be notified that you would like them. Hopefully, the town will realize the necessity of this request and make some standard addresses that are public and any can use to reach them.
scottbillhirst said,
Saturday 28 June 2008 at 13:56 UTC
Hi!
1.Sylvia rarely uses e-mail. So out of fairness call her direct at 377-4912,. To contact me use scottbillhirst@yahoo.com or 377-4643, best if immediate attention needed from me use phone.
2. I had the pleasure of serving with Nathan on Charter Revision Commission. Good Luck with your blog!
Thanks!
Regards,
Scott
scottbillhirst said,
Saturday 28 June 2008 at 14:00 UTC
Hi again,
In a number of communities, local elected officials have government e-mail such as Town Council and School Committee members. That could separate personal and position e-mails and would separate the two, like business/organization e-mails and personal e-mails.
Regards,
Scott
njwashor said,
Sunday 29 June 2008 at 14:58 UTC
Thanks Scott. Are you running this year for Hopkinton TC? Maybe then you could see this gets accomplished? It’s very easy once you have a mail server in place to add new email addresses and forward specific emails to various addresses dependent upon anything from the sender to the content of the email. Since we already do have a mail server… it shouldn’t take but an hour or two of whoever manages that server.
scottbillhirst said,
Monday 30 June 2008 at 18:25 UTC
Nathan,
Yes I am running. I served previously from 1996-2004; half of that time as Vice President. Since the practice is done in other communities that should be easy to do.
Regards,
Scott
Lois said,
Thursday 3 July 2008 at 14:30 UTC
If you need to talk to Tom, please call him. I don’t recall him not returning calls. His personal email should remain his personal email. We often delete emails from people we don’t recognize. I’ve gotten after him because of unwanted viruses, etc… Our number is in the book. Just call.
njwashor said,
Thursday 3 July 2008 at 22:12 UTC
Thanks Lois, I will do that in the future. I still think Hopkinton should give out non-personal email addresses to our councilors for the public to use though.
Lois said,
Thursday 3 July 2008 at 23:18 UTC
Anytime!
I would send a letter to the town hall to Council President Cordone to request this be discussed at a meeting. Although this may be something that doesn’t have to be discussed in this manner.
I know that correspondence is given to the councilors now. Considering we live in the computer age, this may save some paper.
Nice blog. It’s nice to see people taking interest with the goings on in our wonderful town.
njwashor said,
Thursday 3 July 2008 at 23:37 UTC
Thanks! I have my opinions, but I really just want to spark discussion as I am not going to try to “force” anyone to believe what I do. Besides that… I usually discover I know less about the topic I am discussing than I first believed I knew – which can lead to many mouth-in-foot scenarios. I take it Tom is your husband? I have not met him yet, but have only heard great things.
Lois said,
Saturday 5 July 2008 at 4:12 UTC
Yes, he is my husband, for 14 1/2 years now. Poor guy! lol
He’s a good man. He loves this town, and he, like yourself and others, wants and is fighting for what he believes is best for Hopkinton. I’m glad to hear that people are saying great things about him. He is trying. People may not always agree with him, but no-one can argue where his loyalties are.
As for myself, I have had to put my foot in my mouth from time to time, so I can sympathize with that.
I’ve stated in the past that the one who sticks his neck up above the crowd to enact change or to fight for what he believes in is the one who becomes the biggest target. Mr. Felkner is someone like this, and look at the shots he has taken.
Anyways, I wish you great success with your blog. There is nothing wrong with a little discussion. I may not always be able to comment, but I will try to follow your progress. You know, I was saddened by the loss of Hop. RI speaks. I do believe great things occurred because of that blog. I certainly hope yours is equally successful.
HAPPY 4TH!!!!!!!!!!