A screen grab from the first edition of the borough’s new newsletter. (Click to enlarge.)

By JOHN T. WARD

With the recent launch of newsletters, Red Bank residents have two additional ways to keep abreast of civic events and downtown goings-on.

Borough Clerk Laura Reinertsen, above, and RiverCenter executive director Bob Zuckerman, below, author the respective newsletters. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)

• Last week, the borough government published its first newsletter seen in several decades.

Assembled by new borough clerk Laura Reinertsen, the monthly publication is called The Scuttlebutt, and is available as an emailed document and online. There won’t be a printed version, Reinertsen said.

It includes updates on activities in various departments: the Senior Center, Parks & Rec, the public library and more.

“With a little luck you may find a bit of humor, a nugget of useful information, something worthy of printing,” Reinertsen wrote in the introductory issue Thursday.

“I hope to keep it light and provide tidbits that the residents may find informative or interesting,” she told redbankgreen by email.

The first edition came on the heels of a suggestion by Councilman Michael Ballard at a meeting just eight days earlier.

“I do enjoy a challenge,” Reinertsen said.

In her tiny hometown of Winfield (population 1,400), where she began her government career, Reinertsen served as the DIY clerk, doing everything from filing records and handling police dispatch to driving the senior citizens’ bus. For a while, she also produced a quarterly newsletter of six to eight pages, until printing costs doubled and the town dropped it, she said.

As for the Scuttlebutt’s content, “I hope to be able to navigate without any shots fired,” Reinertsen said. “Political issues will be limited to election information; at least that is my intention. One I will impress upon elected contributors when the time comes.”

Reinertsen’s predecessor, Pam Borghi, who retired in February, began her employment with the borough 28 years ago as its public information officer. One of her duties was to produce a quarterly newsletter, but it, too, was dropped in the face of rising print costs, Borghi told redbankgreen.

• Also now producing a newsletter is Red Bank RiverCenter, the downtown special improvement district management agency.

Bob Zuckerman, who took over as executive director in June, says the newsletter, titled the Red Bank Beat, will be emailed weekly. He’ll write it, he said.

“We’ll cover upcoming special events, discounts and promotions from our wonderful merchants, grand openings of new stores in town, and news from our great cultural institutions including the Count Basie Center for the Arts and the Two River Theater,” he wrote in the debut issue of September 15.

Those who want to subscribe can sign up here.

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