FENWICK ISLAND- Town officials have agreed to seek the state’s help in the creation of a new municipal website.
During the regular meeting January 22, members of the Fenwick Island Town Council voted to have town staff work with Delaware’s Government Information Center on the development of a new website. There would be no cost to the town.
“The bottom line here is the state of Delaware is in the website business to provide smaller towns that don’t have budgets for technology the same design that’s transparent, that’s easy, that’s free,” said Merritt Burke, Fenwick Island’s town manager.
According to town officials, because citizens often had trouble navigating the town’s existing website, they’d begun looking at alternatives. That’s where the state’s Government Information Center (GIC) comes in.
“What we’re talking about here is switching the vendor for the town’s website and actually using the state to do our website for us,” Mayor Gene Langan said.
Burke said the GIC had created municipal websites for a number of other towns throughout the First State, including Bethel, Blades, Bridgeville, Felton and Greenwood among others. The sites, he said, include meeting minutes, calendars, information on town events, blogs, videos and search options.
“It checks the box for a municipal website,” Burke said.
Fenwick Island, he said, would be able to continue to offer access to its town code on a GIC website.
While the new site would feature all of the information offered on the existing site, Burke said it would be less busy with a simpler design.
“It’s clean,” he said. “It’s crisp.”
Burke told the council he supported the move to a GIC site because in spite of his efforts and those of the town’s technology committee, citizens continued to have issues with the current site, which costs the town $2,500 a year.
“We have worked very hard over many years to make the website transparent, efficient, productive and yet there are still some issues,” he said. “The community tells us this at most council meetings. Instead of paying for a new website or paying our current company more money to make the website better the state of Delaware is a viable option.”
Langan said the technology committee had met with two representatives from the GIC and voted unanimously to recommend working with the organization on a new site. The council on Friday agreed.
Burke says it’s too early to say when the new site will be up and running.