EJ Notification Sign up web page with Gov Delivery Integration https://dep.nj.gov/ej/meetings/ went live on 1/24/2023

Rich has some revised structure here: NJDEP| Environmental Justice | Attend a Meeting shared last with EJ office Jan 11. Comments and tweaks going back and forth.

Dave reports a draft of the county-by-county structure is ready. Possibly waiting an OK from Kandyce. YouTube channel is working for posting the meeting recordings.

As of 12/13/22 at 1 on 1 with Mandy, she clarified the expectation that Rich H. would both rework the listing by county and set up the Gov Delivery page watch automation. Mandy is able to support Kandyce with any campaign to promote the new sign-up and to coach administering to and selecting the level of automation including issues of batching recent updates at an optimal time of day for customer attention.

As of the 12/12/22 EJ check in, this effort remains on path, Rich Hyjack was working to restructure the hearing info web postings to be sectioned by county so that Mandy can set up a page watch for each section associated with a notification list for each county. This will achieve the county-specific automated* notice of any changes, or updates to postings for that county. The notices will not carry the specifics of the change (they must be fairly generic about new info for the county) but it can lead the recipient directly to that county section where the update occurred.

*While the email notice by county can be fully automated upon any change, there may be interest in EJ staff being notified of a pending broadcast county notice so that they can verify one truly should go out based on the change being made. This would also allow for the broadcast message to be customized for specific change, including, if desired, attaching or embedding specific content of interest so that a web page need not be visited or scanned to learn what is new.

Met with Rich Hyjack and Mandy Futey 11/18/22 to learn of the potential for a fully automated solution through GovDelivery which allows or sign up by county. Mandy indicated an intention to draft up an initial framework using PageWatch features aimed at the specific listing of public hearings. We noted a need to be aware of how any change would be flagged for notification, requiring awareness when correcting or updating for reasons other than the intended notification trigger.

10/26 - assumptions confirmed and questions answered in attached email (.msg). We can proceed toward an initial deliverable allowing sign-up to be notified about a hearing, upon publication of a new, DEP-approved, Public Hearing Notice to the EJ website. Pete is committed to at least delivering a choice to sign up for notification of all published Public Hearing Notices or just those for sites matching a county (or counties) the customer provides.

Meeting set for 11/15 now includes Moriarty, Rosenblatt, Brunatti and Abatemarco.

An initial outline for the meeting might be:

1. overview of what we hope build at first (assumptions reviewed)

2. Consider customer interface concerns and requirements in context of

   1. current sign-up features that could frustrate or confuse those with interest

   2. existing web content, where to place and navigate

   3. the campaign that will be needed to accurately explain and effectively promote sign-up, possibly with baked in future automatic notifications.

3. Future expectations- how to implement and how soon to

   1. make notice upon other events or publication besides the first Public Hearing Notice [note- we need to understand now, how often these might be revised and ensure notification of revisions]

   2. allow for any other customer-chosen notice type (all automatic?) or location qualifiers

   3. Expand to other areas of possible EJ or general community interest beside EJ-rule subjectivity.

Meeting 10/25 -

Assumptions to be checked with Kandyce & Dave:

1. The focus is on only those items identified here: NJDEP| Environmental Justice | Take Action (there are no other EJ triggering events elsewhere).

2. These records appear here only once a hearing notice is approved.

3. The request is to provide sign-up to notified upon the listing of a new record at this page.

New Questions:

1. When is notice requested? (Assumption is at least upon notice of a hearing). Any other time? Can we aim to start here?

2. What is the acceptable limiting condition to be notified (any hearing? those in my county? those in my muni?). Can we start with a basic notice for any hearing for the whole state?.

If answers take us into NJEMS solutions, we need a broader meeting.

Rich confirmed that GovDelivery has an ability to “scrape a webpage for certain info. This may include location which may be used to limit who gets notified for each new triggering event. Gov Delivery has contacts we can bring in as needed. Rich to explore a rudimentary scrape driven list.

Knute to schedule Follow-up to include Dave, Kandyce, Rich and Jim. Optional - Angela, Pete

external share link: https://jira.external-share.com/issue/c5060693-6821-41c0-87ae-f84146f5f232

Meeting with Kandyce - 10/7/22 -

1. What is happening currently driving the interest? Advocates have raised it in rule meetings. Kandyce sees that this loses the point if community is left to scan the website. Unless getting active notice, people may not show up at public sessions because nobody has time to steadily watch the website.

2. When are we thinking to notify and what do we want to show them (can we show them)? At the point of an application being flagged to OPPN, but only once OPPN confirms it, AND when it is available. (is it possible to shrink time from EJ applicability decision to current info posting? - how long is it now?)

Knute (post-meeting): Thinking about the driver to get citizens to public hearings leads to considering that we bake in follow-up and maybe even reminder notices after initial decision point, to track with at least:

• initial decision and documents at that time

• upon setting, approving and posting a hearing date

• near to hearing date reminder

• upon posting of meeting video/transcript and comments

• upon final DEP decision

3. Are there people currently expecting notice or wanting notice that might be a customer focus/check in? Kandyce can supply 5 or so representatives. (Possibly EJAC).

4. Any thoughts about current displays of info at NJDEP| Environmental Justice | Take Action?

Need a bridge between what we have online and the sign-up and the eventual automated document and info storage.

Knute: Could probably put up a blunt force all EJ notice capability on initial posting with a simple listserve, possibly triggered and managed manually on something like a weekly cadence. If possible, we may want to compare to how long to build in the full automated tool with some options to sign up (like within my muni, county or radius), given GIS integration and automation of notices.

(Post-meeting thoughts)

• Follow-up notices seem like way too much to do manually.

• There will need to be a campaign external to this project, probably run through Kandyce and Communications for sharing what we build, re-tooling the existing EJ pages to fit it in, and getting NJ residents to sign up.

• We should be thinking about this as something to scale up to offer as notification sign-up for any type of new permit and ultimately any type of DEP intervention with a possible community interest (Clean-ups, incidents, violations, etc.) . This is likely to coincide with and leverage some re-think of many of our current and probably under-utilized Dataminer offerings.