Moorpark Residents Offered Computer Access to City Hall

Moorpark has become the first Ventura County city to hook up a computer system that permits local residents to communicate with City Hall from home terminals.

But they can only do it one at a time. And, for the moment, the information they can get about city affairs is limited.

Civic leaders nonetheless have hailed the system, which can be used for transmitting messages in addition to viewing public documents, as a way to enhance communication between residents and public officials.

“It opens up access,� said Councilman Roy E. Talley Jr.

Since the $5,000 Citizen Link system began operating in early June, dozens of Moorpark residents have connected to it, including one who transmitted an anonymous complaint about a motorist running a stop sign, City Clerk Lillian Kellerman said.

Most people who have connected to the program are just viewing the information it contains, such as agendas for City Council and Planning Commission meetings or announcements about openings on various advisory boards.

The computer system can save residents the trouble of telephoning hard-to-reach city staff members or driving to City Hall.

But some people who have used Citizen Link said this week that the system has so far proved to be only a small step into the electronic communications age for Moorpark and not a giant leap.

Only residents who have access to computers with modems at their homes or offices can connect to the program.

And the city has no terminals in the library or other public buildings for residents unable to afford their own computers, although Kellerman said she may recommend such a purchase in the next few months.

In addition, resident Dave Vandaveer said, city officials “need to add a little more information� to make the program worthwhile. Vandaveer, a local computer consultant, has tapped into the system several times from his home terminal.

Eloise Brown, a former mayor and current City Council candidate who keeps a close eye on city business, agreed with Vandaveer’s assessment.

“It has great possibilities,� said Brown, who has accessed the program several times from her home computer. “It is rather skeletal at the moment.�

In addition to agendas and announcements, Citizen Link also contains information on local recycling programs and the city’s basic statistics, such as its population and geographical size.

Kellerman said she is preparing to add information about how homeowners can obtain city building permits for such projects as installing a swimming pool or back-yard deck.

And Citizen Link may also eventually include the voluminous staff reports for City Council, Planning Commission and other public meetings, Kellerman said.

But, she said, the city is limited in the amount of information that it will be able to put into the program.

The city programs that have been fed into the Citizen Link system are on one computer disc in a single computer at City Hall, and there is only one connecting phone line. That means that only one resident at a time can access the information.

Right now there is so little information on the program that callers don’t take much time when they access the system. If too much information were on the system, one resident scrolling through all the documents would possibly tie up the line for much longer periods.

And, Kellerman added, “we can’t get more phone lines with this particular system.� She said a system with more phone lines would be far more expensive and beyond the city’s financial reach at this time.

As such, Moorpark’s Citizen Link is not in the same league as the much-touted public computer network set up by the city of Santa Monica in 1989.

That city’s Public Electronic Network, the first of its type in the nation, functions as a sort of electronic town meeting, allowing registered callers to send messages to each other in addition to accessing public information.

Despite the limited scope of the Moorpark system, it has drawn inquiries from officials in neighboring Simi Valley, who are considering installing a similar program.

Officials in Thousand Oaks, Oxnard and the city of Ventura said they have in the past considered setting up some type of public computer systems, but have no immediate plans.

FYI

The Moorpark Citizen-Link program can be accessed by dialing 529-6781 on a computer modem. Modems should be set to eight data bits, one stop bit and no parity, according to the Moorpark city clerk. For more information, call City Hall at 529-6864.