By Cara Spoto • Central Wisconsin Sunday •

In cities and villages across Wisconsin, residents use the Web to get
the answers to a variety of questions, including those about municipal
services and operations.

But in rural towns where locals must often drive through rain and snow
to read a meeting notice or call their town hall to find out whether
they need a permit, the Internet might just as well not exist.

But things might be changing, slowly.

In central Wisconsin, only a quarter of the 80 town governments in
Portage, Wood and Marathon counties have Web sites, but that’s more
than there were five years ago. It shows that town officials are
gradually starting to see that the Web can be a useful communication
tool, said Rick Stadelman, executive director of the Wisconsin Towns
Association.

The association, which represents 1,255 towns and 20 villages across
the state, encourages town governments to establish Web sites and has
held a number of training sessions over the years for town officials
interested in doing so.

“Local citizens will have a chance to see 24 hours a day, seven days a
week, something about your town,” Stadelman said of the benefits
having a Web site. “It could be everything from when the next monthly
meeting is, to the agenda for the next day, to ordinances, to
events.”

Hull, in Portage County, is one town that is considering starting a
Web site. The town’s finance committee this week recommended setting
aside a limited amount of money to create one.

Although most town governments with Web sites in central Wisconsin,
such as Grand Rapids in Wood County, Weston in Marathon County and
Plover in Portage County, share borders with cities or larger
villages, Stadelman said even completely rural towns should have
sites.

“The Internet isn’t urban or rural. The Internet is worldwide. The
town of Cloverland up in (Vilas) County probably had a Web site six or
eight years ago,” he said.

Stadelman thinks part of the reason towns have been slow to embrace
the Internet is the fact that technology has changed very fast and
that many people involved in town governments don’t feel comfortable
using computers.

Town of Lanark Supervisor Mike Pagel, Portage County unit chairman for
the towns association, said the association estimates that one-third
of the town halls in Wisconsin do not have computers.

Pagel, who set up the Web site for Lanark, said creating a Web site
shouldn’t pose many difficulties, since most town officials or
residents know someone with the skills to create a simple page.

The cost of maintaining a site also shouldn’t be a problem. Pagel said
towns can pay a company to create and maintain a site, but he found
free software that allowed him to do it himself. Lanark’s Web site now
costs the town about $70 a year, $10 a year for the address, and $5 a
month for the Web space.

The trick is creating a Web site that is easy to update, Pagel said.
Town of Stockton Supervisor Jerry Piesik said that when he set up
Stockton’s Web site five years ago, he made sure that the town clerk
would be able to post information to the site without assistance.

“Our meeting minutes are all posted up there, and all of our records,”
Piesik said. “We would like to do some more with it, but for the most
part, it’s very functional. People tell us they like it.”