In 2001, a local resident decided
that the Town of Kearny (New Jersey) and its neighboring towns of Harrison, East
Newark and North Arlington needed a portal of information on the web.
KearnyOnTheWeb.Com was born and became an immediate success primarily because of
its Message Board (Discussion Forum).
In late 2003, KearnyOnTheWeb was
sold and a new webmaster took over its daily operation. A new Message
Board (now called a Discussion Board) was installed and improvements were made
both to the content of the website and to its content.
What does the future hold?
It's partially up to you. The Discussion Board is a hit. Local
Residents have had discussions about the lack of a Fire Department Contract to
the Town Budget, to which Bar/Club is the best in town. The next step is
to involve members of the community to become reporters of events around town.
KearnyOnTheWeb is looking for individuals to become reporters, with or without a
byline. Why? Because the internet is a great place to exchange ideas
and to get information out that otherwise would not get out to the general
public. If you attend town council meetings on a regular basis, you can
report on what occurred at a particular council meeting. If you attend
town sporting events, you can report on those events. By getting
involved you improve our community.
KOTW is looking for individuals to get
involved in the community by becoming KOTW reporters. If you are a parent, coach,
teacher, student or resident that regularly attends a sports event, town
meeting, or town event, KOTW would like you to submit an article about the event for
publication. If you regularly attend a council meeting, maybe you would
like to be the KOTW council meeting reporter. If you are a local sports
enthusiast, maybe you would like to report on a local team.
To submit an article, email it to the
Webmaster. You can opt to have a byline or just simply ask that you be
anonymous.
If you like what you see and believe that KOTW should continue
to provide timely information about local events including issues effecting
you, support KOTW by patronizing our advertisers. For example, if you
intend on making a purchase at Circuit City, you can click on the Circuit City
ad on this page and follow the link to the Circuit City website. Make
your purchase and you have supported KOTW. Circuit City even allows you to
order online and pick up your purchase at your local store. Most
advertisers provide free shipping (or reduced shipping).
Our Discussion Board is the most visited part of our website.
Why? Because the Discussion Board is the place where individuals can exchange
opinions about issues effecting our community.
In September 2003, a new and improved Discussion Board was
installed. At first, individuals were reluctant to use the new board but
in a little over 4 months there have been over 2200 posts to the board and 66
Members registered with many more participating as Guests. On November
26, 2003, there were 63 users online at the same time. Although
KOTW (the webmaster) has had to edit some posts for inappropriate content,
KOTW has only deleted one post because that post was a duplicate post (some
housekeeping). It is KOTW's policy to attempt not to edit posts.
So far, the policy has fostered an open and civil discussion of issues.
Participants can registered as Members, (anonymous or under their real name)
or they can participate as Guests. Becoming a Member allows the editing
of posts for that occasional spelling or syntax errors and insures that nobody
else posts with your chosen Discussion Board name.
KOTW hopes that in the coming year that our elected officials
register as Members and participate in the Discussion Board. In 2003,
Kearny Councilman James Mangin and Councilwoman Laura Cifelli-Pettigrew
participated in discussions. Kearny Mayor Alberto Santos recently
mentioned the KOTW Discussion Board at a council meeting when he discussed a
December 12, 2003 post by Councilman Mangin under the Property Taxes Going
Through the Roof discussion thread. Councilman Mangin proposed some
budget cuts in the post. Mayor Santos took issue with the proposed cuts
and it lead to a heated discussion at the council meeting. Mayor Santos
failed to mention KearnyOnTheWeb by name but it was clear that he had printed
out Councilman Mangin's post and had prepared a response. It would have
been nice if the Mayor had provided a written response online.
Access to information is important to our continued democracy.
Fewer and fewer residents come out to council meetings. Reporters from
the major papers serving our communities attend council meetings but their
reports many times fall short of covering the issues and opinions raised at
the council meeting. At times one wonders, "What council meeting was
that reporter at?" If you feel the same, submit your report
(anonymously or with a byline) and KOTW will publish it.
Community Calendar
In an effort to keep everyone involved
in our community, KOTW has a Community Calendar as part of the site. The
Community Calendar can be accessed through the link at the top left hand side
of this page or through the following link,
Link to
Calendar of Events.
If you have a community event that you
would like to include in the Community Calendar, please e-mail the webmaster
by
clicking here. The Community Calendar is
integrated with our Discussion Board so news of your event will get out to
those participating on the Discussion Board.
Other Pages
Check out the following pages
The
Environment: A Collection of Links Regarding the Kuehne Chemical Plant
and Other Plants Affecting Our Local Environment.
The
Significance of Veterans Day: A Tribute to Our Veterans
Books of New
Jersey : A Collection of Book Links including Books on Kearny & Harrison
National Adoption Search Help: An Research Resource for Adopted Children
(very good links courtesy of our previous webmaster)
Common
Valor:A Book by Kearny Firefighter Frank
Viscuso
Opinion Page: Editorials &
Letters to KOTW.
