|
Electronic village of Abingdon "91st Day" Subcommittee MINUTES 26 May, 1999 12:30 PM The scheduled meeting of the Electronic Village of Abingdon "91st Day" Subcommittee held in the Johnston Memorial Hospital Cafeteria was opened by Dr. F. H. Moore, Jr. Chairman. There were ten participants present. These included:
On motion of Ray Millsap, seconded by Jack White, the minutes of the 28 April 1999 meeting were approved as presented. The next item for review was the status of new connections, including:
All of the above items were self-explanatory except for the last one. Mr. Bradley stated that this was an interconnection between NetAccess' two locations; one on Valley Street and one on West Main and that sharing of costs with NetAccess would have to be worked out, so it was on hold. The next business item was an advisory one for the Town. During the coming fiscal year, the Town plans to place information from its GIS system on the www.abingdon.com website. A part of this system contains information of a semiprivate nature including maps of land and owner's name, address, assessed values, property location, deed book and page, parcel size or acreage. There are actually 34 separate headings of information for each parcel, not all of which are applicable to each parcel, but some of which will apply to all parcels. Since portions of this information will be of a sensitive nature, the Town staff was seeking the advice of the EVA Subcommittee as to how much of the information should be placed on the web site. After discussion, during which it was noted that all of this information is of public record or available from separate but commonly available sources such as the telephone book, a motion was made by Jack White, seconded by John Mongle, and unanimously approved to recommend to the Abingdon Town Council that all relevant GIS information should be made readily available from the Town's web site. The 91st Day Subcommittee further suggested that Town Council should be also consulted in advance of the opening of this site.The 91st Day Subcommittee was advised of equipment to be made available free of charge through project CONNECT, a program of Cabletron Systems, for organizations which did not have access to networking equipment. Town Staff was advised to apply as necessary for equipment and to make good use of any available equipment, especially for public access. Several members including Dr. Moore and Jack White reported on the Governor's Commission on Information Technology held at Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center; Abingdon, Virginia, May 12, 1999. Many of the persons representing industry and government were highly impressed with the educational and telecommunications facilities available here. Also discussed were recent meetings of the Regional Technology Council, the first of which was held in Abingdon with approximately 250 people in attendance. One further meeting has been held in St. Paul, VA and the next is scheduled for Marion, VA on June 14th. Jay Cox has been chosen as Chairman of this group. Dr. Moore reported on his most recent investigations into use of the poles along railroad beds for our expansion purposes. He had contacted a local person with Norfolk Southern Railway who had given him the name and phone number of someone to contact in the Roanoke offices of NS, but he had been unsuccessful as of our meeting date in contacting that person. The final agenda item was that of a notice of the next meeting of the Southern Growth Policies Board to be held on 27-29 June in Charleston, WVA. The topic for that meeting is "TeleCom South: Connecting with the Future". A message on the meeting stated that the program "includes national speakers and a showcase of more than 60 telecommunications projects." Students from Duke University have been conducting research on EVA on behalf of the Southern Growth Policies Board and EVA is likely to be one of the telecommunications projects included at this event. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 1:56 PM. Respectfully Submitted,
______________________________________________ Albert C. Bradley, Secretary | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||