Residents who filled out an online application for open Board and Commission vacancies may have to fill one out again. According to the city’s website an error occured and applications filled out online may have been filtered out by the city’s junk email filter program.


An apology for the error was posted on the city’s website along with a request for anyone who filled out an application online to please fill out a second. The deadline for applications is February 5, 2007.


Currently there are 11 open vacancies among the various boards and committes that serve the city. Applicants must be electors, cannot hold any other elected or appointed office or be city employees and receive no compensation. Vacancies exist on the Planning Commission, Board of Zoning Appeals, Parks, Recreation and Culture Board, Environmental Advisory Committee, Personnel Board, Impact Fee Appeals Board and the Bikeway and Advisory Committee.


It’s not surprising that an error such as this could occur. The propblem of junk email, also known as “spam” is growing every day. It’s estimated that the cost to business is neary 9 billion dollars a year. Much of this cost is in the purchase of junk email filtering software like the one that may have rejected applications at the city’s website.


The Federal Trade Commission reports receiving over 130,000 junk email complaints a day and says that at least 45 percent of all email is now spam. Nearly three trillion spam messages are sent each year amounting to 13 times the total regular mail delivered by the U.S. Postal service.