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Wallingford mayor, residents fight over Town Hall employees’ lack of email access

WALLINGFORD–A face-to-face showdown between the mayor of Wallingford and people living in the town, all over how best to communicate. Neighbors are baffle...

WALLINGFORD--A face-to-face showdown between the mayor of Wallingford and people living in the town, all over how best to communicate.

Neighbors are baffled as they try to understand why people working at the Town Hall, including the mayor, don’t have email accounts.

“That’s not necessarily the only way to communicate. There are other ways to communicate,” says Mayor William Dickson.

The other ways being by phone or an in-person visit, which neighbors say are too time consuming.

“Last Thursday morning at 9 a.m., I called the billing department, I could not get through. At 9:15 I could not get through. No answers,” said one resident.

However, Mayor Dickinson said emails are too costly because they require monitoring and would mess up work flow at the Town Hall. Therefore, he’s trying to keep it as simple as possible with phones and visits, calling emails dated.

“Alexander Graham Bell came along and said 'wow, there’s far better communication to hear someone's voice than to send telegrams.' So, we go through a whole process of upgrading all of our communications so you can hear a voice and understand the meaning behind the words, and now we're back to telegramming back and forth,” said Dickinson.

“So you're basically saying our town is run on telegrams?” asked another resident.

Dickenson says at least one computer is set up in the Town Hall for anyone who needs email access, but says it’s not encouraged.

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