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Policy on the use of the Lyme ListServ
The Selectboard and other Town Officials recognize that it is essential to make information available to all residents as quickly and expeditiously as possible. This is achieved by the use of public notices at the Town Offices, Nichols and Lyme Center Post Office, town-wide mailings, notifications on the town’s official web site (http://www.lymenh.gov) either by visiting the site or by receiving email notifications* and, when appropriate, newspaper advertisements. In addition to these
services there is an unofficial on-line mailing service/discussion group, the Lyme Listserv. This has approximately 250 subscribers and enables subscribers to post general community notices and have email conversations of general issues.
The town does use the Listserv to disseminate information, as another form of public noticeboard, but there are constraints on town use which are not necessarily apparent to the public. In essence, these all derive from the State’s Right-to-Know law and are applicable to all board and committee members. This law does not yet have any explicit section dealing with electronic communication, but all the legal advice from both State and Town attorneys is that any email communications made by town officials or board and committee members, with regard to town business, could be considered as part of a meeting discussion. However, all meetings (with certain specific exceptions) are public and warned as such. An email discussion has not been warned as a public
meeting and, therefore, has the potential for excluding some part of the town’s population. Because of this officials or board and committee members should not join in any discussion of issues relating to their specific areas of responsibility.
The Town will continue to use Listserv to publish information to the town, as appropriate. However, this will only be in the form of a simple notification. Officials, board and committee members will not respond to any comments made about their areas of responsibility on the listserv, nor will they elaborate on published notices. Please do not think that the lack of response does not mean they are not listening.
Signed
Board of Selectmen May 24, 2007
*You may subscribe to the email facility whereby you receive notices and public agendas by completing the form under the Email Subscriber option of the town’s home page. This is a read-only option. Out of a population of some 1700, there are approximately 250 subscribers to this town email service.
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