I had anticipated that being the "official" webmaster of the "official" web site would get me enhanced access to and the cooperation of town officials. I prepared myself to be inundated with volumes of information, and even worried that I might be overwhelmed by the task of "weberizing" a town with a 250-year history. This worry was certainly wasted time, as I was soon desperately looking through the "government" pages of the phone book for something, anything, to put on the site. Not being one who gives up at the first sign of pointlessness , I assumed that eventually someone in town government would figure out how to copy a document, put it in an envelope, write my name and address on it, and send it to me. When I was feeling particularly confident, I imagined they might even learn how to send an e-mail with an attachment. So, I continued to prepare for a content explosion and even began writing software programs that would enable residents to fill out forms on-line that would create printable town documents. Time passed. I nagged and nagged-- even going so far as to request from the Mayor he make the extraordinary effort and actually write a paragraph of "welcome" text for the site. But no, that was asking too much, and I guess there wasn't any budget to pay staff to do it.

In hindsight, it is clear that my collaboration with the town was over shortly after it had begun. There is no welcome message from any government official on the site because their was no intention for the site I was creating to remain the "official town site". The fact is the Officials of Mendham (including the P.D.) used me. With cynical and deliberate intent, they strung me along knowing that if I knew their game, I would bolt, and they could no longer pretend they had something to do with creating a town site. So now the town has found a respectable, payable replacement to roll the ball I pushed up the hill, and "Go-ahead-and-bolt day" is here. Regrettably time has been wasted and opportunities lost by officials playing this petty little game. In the two years since my first meeting with the Mayor, I would contend that if you added up all the minutes town personnel spent compiling or formatting information for the web site, it wouldn't add up to 8 hours work--an incredibly dismal performance record I defy the Mayor or Administrator to dispute. Unfortunately, I think, there is now little hope our town will get the more accessible, reliable, and productive cyber-government I, in foolish idealism, envisioned two years ago. But as consolation, I am now free to do things my way and to expand on ideas "official" censorship would not have permitted. If, like me, you live inMendham and would like easy access to all available information relevant to life inMendham, you will support inMendham.com in its effort to help make living inMendham as uncomplicated as possible.