C. Davey … made a request that the times and locations of regularly scheduled meetings be provided on the town website. R. Morra apologized and explained the town is currently short staffed due to medical issues. He will make sure it is addressed by the next meeting.

This short paragraph is from the minutes of the Bolton Board of Selectmen’s March 28, 2017, meeting. It tells a story that has become all too common in Bolton. Because, despite Mr. Morra’s promise, the issue was not addressed by the next BOS meeting.

In fact, as of today, six months later, the issue has still not been addressed.

Screen grab from Town of Bolton website

The town calendar is on the landing page of the town’s website. Each red star indicates a public meeting or town-wide event. When you hover over one of the stars on the calendar, a pop-over appears.

It tells you which board is meeting and the date (twice!). But you already know the date of the meeting, so the only new information you get is the identity of the board.

The pop-overs contain embedded links, so you might think that clicking will lead to more information.

Sadly, that’s not the case. Each event on the calendar has its own webpage. Each one looks similar to this:

Screen grab from Town of Bolton website

An entire page to show you what you already know!

What you don’t know—what you most need to know—is when the meeting starts and where it will be. That’s basic information that should be readily available to any citizen who visits the town website.

That’s the little thing Chris asked for six months ago. He was promised it would be fixed in a few weeks. It wasn’t.

Little things matter, and Town Hall’s failure to attend to them speaks to a climate of pervasive mismanagement and indifference to the town’s citizens. If the First Selectman and town administrator cannot follow through on a small request that would have been simple to implement and would have made the town website a far more effective communications tool, we should not be surprised that they have bungled far more significant issues.

Communication is crucial to the health of a community. The lines of communication to and from Town Hall have been allowed to atrophy for far too long under Republican leadership.

Bolton’s Democratic slate will work to restore the community’s trust in Town Hall, reinvigorate lines of communication, and always remember that little things matter.