These days most of us communicate using email, but don't try to contact Wallingford town workers that way. The mayor discourages that sort of communication between employees and constituents.
"To say it's not good enough to talk to someone, that I need to use basically a pre-Civil War mechanism of sending a telegram to someone is incredible to me," said Wallingford Mayor William Dickinson in response to questions from the public during a town council meeting Tuesday night regarding his selective use of internet and email for town employees.
The mayor went on to say that "Alexander Graham Bell came along and said, 'Wow! Far better communication to hear someone's voice than to send telegrams.' So we go through the process of upgrading all of our communications so you can hear a voice and understand the meaning behind the word, and now we’re back to telegramming back and forth."
During the public comment session, the mayor was asked by several residents why most town employees do not have access to the internet at work or have a town email address. The mayor, who has control over such things, called emails costly and inefficient. He says the phone works perfectly fine.
"We do not want to encourage additional ways of contacting town departments," said the mayor during the meeting.
"We're in the year 2015. I don't know anybody who doesn't use email. I think it's a tool that makes people more efficient," said Bob Gross.
Gross is a longtime resident of Wallingford and attended Tuesday night's meeting. He says it just doesn't make sense and complains that the only way to get documents and forms is to visit town hall in person, which isn't always easy and convenient to do.
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"What business or town doesn't have email? Where don't you use it to save time and efficiency?" said Gross.
Council Chairman Vinny Cervoni says adding email would increase costs and that the current system works for Wallingford.
"A municipality has to comply with the FOI act, which means you can't get rid of anything and so you will be dealing with mounting costs," said Cervoni. "Maintaining that level of data storage can be very costly and consuming in terms of some resources."
Cervoni adds that those town employees who need access to email to perform their duties receive that access. He says the technology topic clearly holds an ulterior motive.
"Last night's meeting, it was clearly part of a political campaign," said Cervoni.
The chairman says that some who spoke are members of the mayor's opposing campaign, but Gross, who brought up the subject in the first place, said, at least with him, that wasn't the case.
"It wasn't politically motivated. I had no idea this was going to blow up like it did," said Gross.
Cervoni says councilmembers do communicate with constituents through personal email accounts.
We reached out to the mayor and he did not want to go on camera Wednesday night, but he did say not every office needs internet or email and that employees can access internet in specific offices.
