Upper Mount Bethel Tp's Acting IT Director States 53% of Email to Tp Was Blocked in 2024

I've just finished watching Upper Mount Bethel Tp's (UMBT) latest Supervisors' meeting, a three-hour affair on Monday night, which is actually conducted in a garage. I sometimes wonder whether carbon monoxide affects the thinking of both the board and the large number of people who are always there. I heard complaints from neighbors about Mikey Stine, whose stump farm is burning all kinds of things, from vinyl siding to insulation in violation of a township ordinance that the fire chief has no authority to enforce. I thought it might be the fumes of a Ron Angle cigar, but he told me he stays away from plastic these days. Concerns were raised about PLANSlateBelt, a multi-municipal comprehensive plan that might stick Upper Mount Bethel with most of the least desired uses. And something besides Stine's burn farm really stinks. A park foundation seeded with township money as well as contributions from private donors has failed to appear at a Parks and Rec Board meeting for eight years straight but somehow is $30,000 in debt.  These are all stories, but I thought I'd start with an easy one brought up by Stavros Barbounis, who chairs the Parks and Rec Board and is also the Township's acting IT Director. 

Barbounis addressed rumors that the Parks and Recreation Board is corrupt and controls the emails coming into the township. He called this rumor "wildly inaccurate," noting that the township uses a third party cloud-based threat intelligence system to screen emails. 

In 2024, 53% of all emails sent to UMBT - 48,003 emails - were blacked as "inappropriate." "Those are confirmed threats," he said. He also explained that when an email is blocked, the recipient is notified nd can release the black to read it anyway. 

This sounds to me as though the third-party screener probably is identifying a lot of what you and I would call spam, not threats. That has a more ominous tone. 

I also think that if 53% of the email is blocked, the spam filter is set too high. This actually hinders a local government from being responsive to the citizens it is supposed to be serving. UMBT Chair John Bermingham calls himself  "The Voice for the People" on Facebook. Until the Township relaxes the filter on its email screens, he's really only the Voice for 47% of the People.