Englewood Independent
July 24, 1996

Thanks to the efforts of a handful of highly skilled community volunteers, people from around the world can access a wealth of information regarding Northmont area communities over the Internet.

Members of the Northmont Area Community Network, or NACNET, have developed "home pages" on the World Wide Web for each of the jurisdictions in the area. Anyone who is connected to the Internet can access any or all of the pages at NACNET's address. The address is htip: / /www.nacnet org

Jack Marshall of Randolph Township, one of the leaders of the NACNET group, became interested in developing a local home page after seeing the efforts of other communities in the United States. Subsequent conversations with Randolph Township Trustee President Ted Gudorf led to a community meeting in September of last year and the subsequent formation of the group. The founding members of NACNET established preliminary home pages a month later and are continuously refining them.

Gudorf said all the credit goes to members of NACNET. "It is just incredible what these citizens have done in service to our Greater Northmont community," said Gudorf. They have provided us with state-of-the-art home pages at absolutely no cost to the taxpayers. We are extremely pleased with their results."

NACNET hopes to see the home pages become an accepted and often used community forum, Marshall said. In addition to providing information to those seeking it, he notes that the system can work both ways, with people sending in items that will be of interest to others.

"That's actually one of our biggest priorities," Marshall said. "We need people to be aware of us so that they naturally think to supply us with information such as community events. What we're trying to do is set up two-way communications among people in the area." The simplest way to send something, Marshall says, is to access the network and then follow the instructions to transmit e-mail.

Someone accessing NACNET can receive a wide range of information, including the history and demographics of the community and area schools, as well as notice of current happenings and upcoming events. Bulletin "links" allow a user to navigate quickly from one area to another to find specific information, or you can leisurely look through the pages. For the full effect of the graphics and animation within each page, Marshall said to use an updated Web browser which can be downloaded directly from the NACNET system.

A community forum section of the network is designed to allow residents the chance to comment on local issues. The government-identifled pages are meant strictly for factual and informational items, Marshall said. Additional volunteers are always being sought to help NACNET develop, maintain, and update the various Web pages within the network.

Marshall said he is familiar with a number of other community networks on the Internet, and he believes NACNET is very advanced for the size community it serves.

"To my knowledge, there is no other network that goes into this kind of depth of information" in a community similar to the Northmont area, he said. He added that the network has received favorable comments from people who have accessed it from around the world.

People interested in getting involved in NACNET should call Marshall at 898-4791.