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By Neil Schulman
Long branch – The website of the town of Long Branch, www.longbranch.org, and its technological infrastructure, has made it easier than ever for officials to connect with residents.
The preferred feature of Board Chair Dr. Anita Voogt is the ability to sign up for a newsletter, overseen by Danna Kawut, who keeps her up to date with all special events and activities planned in the city.
“She does her e-blast every week,” Voogt said. “It’s very useful for me, and I imagine it is very useful for the 2,000 people registered” to receive it.
At the Long Branch Council workshop on September 9, Will Bahamonde, IT director for the city, described some of the website changes recently and how they are affecting residents.
Since Mayor John Pallone’s administration took over in 2018, regular meetings and workshop council meetings have been streamed live on YouTube. The Long Branch YouTube page also has videos highlighting Long Branch employees and features, and since 2020 has been posting videos related to Covid 19.
Nearly 250 videos have been produced.
It’s not just the features of YouTube that have helped fight Covid. The city has used its infrastructure to set up a Covid 19 vaccination hotline, which has helped 9,000 people register for vaccines in the city, Bahamonde said.
Several technologies make life easier for residents. Long Branch installed credit card terminals and made it possible to pay for certain services online. “Several hundred thousand dollars in payment have been processed with our new system,” Bahamonde said.
Much work has been done on the website, both visible to residents and behind the scenes. A new dashboard feature allows residents to see the latest news. When Bahamonde spoke, he had recently added announcements regarding the dredging of Lake Takanassee which was about to begin and the 9/11 commemoration ceremonies to come.
In addition, this site made it easier for residents to report their problems to the city and people to access accident reports online.
City staff have received more training on cybersecurity, and it is proving effective, Bahamonde said.
“Our analyzes show that we are becoming less prone to phishing with this program,” Bahamonde said. Phishing is when hackers try to trick you into giving them access to a system, often by disguising a virus as a document or link to an important website.
Expect more changes by the end of the year, he said. “We are working on some really big updates. “
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