WLB holds first meeting Boro Hall since COVID-19

By Coleen Burnett

The West Long Branch Borough Council held its only July meeting on July 1. It was notable for being the first meeting in Boro Hall since the Covid-19 pandemic shut down the building earlier in the year.

The building has been properly retrofitted with such new accoutrements as plastic window shields for the safety of employees and residents. Proper social distancing was observed, and hand sanatizer was at the ready for anyone who wanted to use it.

Mayor Janet Tucci set the tone right out of the box by asking the council to fix a longstanding problem. Like millions of other Americans, she’s been spending a lot of time at home, and there’s at least one aspect of borough life that she’s sick of looking at.

“I’m looking at the website and it really needs to be updated,” she said. “Probably none of you even look at it, but it is a venue our residents use.”

Tucci then ticked off a list of problems with the site. Former Councilman Fred Migliaccio is still listed as being on the governing body. There are pictures posted from the 2017 Fall Festival. And perhaps worst of all, minutes of various meetings, even though posted, tend to disappear. The only consistently good thing about the site is that the borough calendar has the correct information.

Tucci noted that one website, the West Long Branch Residents Page, always has consistently good information – their webmaster attends every council session – but it is not the official source of borough information. The Mayor realizes that everyone is busy with trying to catch up on work after being in quarantine, but it was time to do something. She urged all of the council members to look at the website under each of their areas of expertise, make a list, and send it to her.

“I think what I’d like to do is make a list of things to be changed… I think that would be good {for a start}.”

Borough Administrator Stephanie Dollinger was asked by Tucci to try and locate an “in-house” webmaster to untangle what is already there –  at least temporarily.

“”I just think it’s something we need to do,” Tucci concluded, “It’s not going to be done overnight. It might take a month, a month and a half, but I just want somebody I know and can count on to take care of it.

It doesn’t seem like a big job, but I guess it is to keep it current.”