Win-win for everyone

FSHS project to help residents connect with local governments

By Katie Wilson

FAIRMONT — Some students at Fairmont Senior High are working on a project to help residents connect with their local governments in new ways.

It’s called the e-Government project. It was created by the Community Connect Foundation, the state department of education, the state office of technology, the West Virginia Association of County Officials, the state Municipal League, the Regional Education Service Agencies and the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation. All these groups have partnered to create the project, which will take several years to deploy statewide.

The project is adding a portal to the state government Web site, wv.gov, that will allow citizens to access information about their local city and county governments at any time of the day or night.

In Marion County, the project is being conducted by Fairmont Senior High School students in the civics classes taught by Tyson Furgason.

Furgason said his classes have been working on the project for about a month, learning about local governments and how they work.

Now, the project is moving into the second phase. They have contacted each municipal government and the county government and are collecting information. When they’ve collected it all, they’ll put it up on the Web for the benefit of the citizens.

Furgason said it’s a win-win situation for everyone: The students are learning lots; local officials get to connect with their constituents; citizens get 24/7 access to information about their local governments.

The students have created questionnaires that they’ve sent to local governments. Furgason said the questionnaire requests lots of information for citizens, such as general information on each elected office, the jurisdiction and requirements of the office.

“This is a new avenue of communication,” Furgason said. “This eliminates the trouble of getting someone on the phone or getting to the right person.”

The town of Farmington is taking the questionnaire very seriously.

Councilwoman Donna Costello was assigned the responsibility of filling out the questionnaire. She said she’s taking lots of time to fill it out to make sure the students get the best information available related to the town.

“I believe this is an enormous undertaking for high school students,” Costello said. “We’re giving our full support to the Fairmont Senior civics classes.”

Farmington is just one of several towns which have jumped on the bandwagon to help the students make the project a success.

Another is the City of Fairmont. Mayor Matt Delligatti said he actually visited FSHS so the students could interview him about the project.

“I was very impressed with the three young ladies I met with,” Delligatti said. “They had a good grasp on city government and were very well-organized.”

Delligatti said the heads of the different city departments really liked some parts of the questionnaire, such as the section about frequently asked questions. Some of those departments get the same questions over and over again, he said, and it’s nice to have a place where people can go to get the information.

“It goes pretty well with the city’s Web site,” he said. “I think eventually we’ll link the city’s site with it.”

If your public office is interested in participating or receiving some information, contact Tyson Furgason and his students at FSHS. Furgason said people should call the school at 304-367-2150, and leave a message with the school secretary, who will forward it to the class.

“If you leave your name, number and the best time to call back, either I or one of the students will call you back,” Furgason said.

E-mail Katie Wilson at kwilson@timeswv.com.