As technology continues to grow, the Town of Hempstead continually looks for opportunities to expand our on-line presence. Recently, we unveiled the latest additions to our Internet website (www.townofhempstead.org). The website now offers instant weather forecasts and emergency weather messages are posted if necessary. To access the emergency message, visitors to the site should call up the town's home page, drag down to the bottom of the page, and double click on Emergency Message. Up-to-the-minute Long Island traffic reports are also available, as well as a compilation of available websites that complement the town's efforts, including those of local universities, libraries, the Long Island Rail Road, and tourism organizations.

The town's home page is already one of the most comprehensive and informative sites offered by a local municipality, and it is updated daily.

Comprising more than 200 pages, the town's website provides information on every aspect of the town including citizen service, building and zoning, and recreation, including winter/spring information of parks activities, programs, concerts and lectures. It includes conservation, town resources, town government, and much more. Also available on the site is the town's 1999 Sanitation Pick-Up Schedule, an item extremely important to our residents. Now in its second year, www.townofhempstead.org is averaging close to 4,000 visitors a day, making it one of the most popular municipal websites on the World Wide Web. We can all be proud that our efforts to provide a comprehensive and detailed website are being so well received.

As the largest township in America, the Town of Hempstead site was designed not only to serve its 735,000 residents, but to inform the nation and the world about the wonderful opportunities available in our township. The town's site has been accessed by web-surfers from all over Europe, Asia, Canada, dozens of universities, libraries and government agencies, and by individuals across the nation.

On behalf of all the members of the Hempstead Town Board, I urge websurfers to navigate through the site's pages for a complete overview of our township. The diversity of exciting things to do and see is part of what makes our township one of the most desirable locations in all the world, and our website one of the most inclusive.