ON-LINE: MISSOURI EXPRESS OFFERS INFORMATION

It could be easier for area residents to get on the Internet and for area governments to provide information on-line as a result of a statewide program called Missouri Express.

The Missouri General Assembly appropriated $6 million in capital improvement funds for Missouri Express to use to build community information networks. It has started by announcing that nine local programs will get help, including Show-Me Net based at the Riverside Regional Library in Jackson.

Show-Me Net is a cooperative group of local government bodies and libraries that gives residents Internet access and is working on providing web pages for local groups. It includes Cape Girardeau city and county governments, schools and library, Jackson city, Scott City and schools as well as Riverside Library.

In the first local improvement under the $6 million program, the state will provide a modem pool that will give Show-Me Net support for 24 telephone lines. It currently has modem pools for 16 lines at the Riverside Public Library in Jackson and eight lines in Benton, said Larry Loos, a computer consultant and president of Show-Me Net's board of directors.

Loos said the additional lines will enable Show-Me Net to install lines in Perryville. That will enable Perry County and Old Appleton residents to have toll-free access to the Internet, Loos said.

They will join residents of virtually all of Cape Girardeau County and the northern part of Scott County with toll-free access to the Internet.

Loos said Show-Me Net so far mainly provides on-ramps to the information superhighway through Riverside Library. Users from the three counties have to pay a $100 annual fee to get an e-mail address, a password and unlimited access.

What Missouri Express and Show-Me Net want to do is expand the amount of information put into the Internet from local sources, Loos said.

Walter Denton, assistant to the Cape Girardeau city manager, said the city government is studying ways of making itself more accessible through the Internet. He said that eventually anyone wanting agendas of city meetings, texts of staff reports by city officials, job openings or information about parks and recreation events could do so on-line.

Loos said the technology the state is offering has the capability of allowing residents to reserve shelters or softball fields in parks by modem at all hours and without tying up staff time.

Missouri Express does not give money to the local networks, said Lois Pohl of the Office of Administration in Jefferson City. Instead, it will give the networks hardware, invite participants to training sessions and sometimes send consultants in to help, Pohl said.

Todd Krupa, who is with MOREnet, the group that will provide the training, said Missouri Express will help local groups set up new ways to interact with citizens. For example, citizens can ask a city to leave them e-mail messages whenever the city is considering a certain kind of project so those citizens can express their opinions on it.

Or a city could post the tentative design of a bridge on the Internet and ask citizens to redesign it, Krupa said.

Loos said posting information on the Internet would be easy because most work is done on computers already. Using the Internet well could reduce the city's workload and increase its input from citizens at the same time, Loos said.