Monday, January 7, 2008

Phoenixville's website

Dear Councilman Handwerk:

Since you have expressed a concern about the contents of the Borough’s website, may I suggest a few areas that merit further attention.

1. Is this an official website of Phoenixville and, if so, who is responsible for its content?

2. The other Council Member from the Middle Ward has no contact information posted.

3. The most recent Borough Council minutes are those for August 29, 2007. I believe that there have been Council meetings since then, with minutes being produced.

4. The site links to the Proposed 2008 Budget, although the actual budget, which is difference, was approved last month.

5. The website states that “Our goal is to keep the community up to date with important information associated with the Government of the Borough.” To whom does the pronoun “our” refer and what steps will you put in place toward the achievement of the stated goal?

3 comments:

The Chicken Cacciatore Project said...

Councilman Handwerk's reply:

To answer your questions,

1. Is this an official website of Phoenixville and, if so, who is
responsible for its content?

I believe that it is an official website of the borough. As far as who is responsible for the content, I do not know. When I emailed Paul last week with my contact information, he informed me that he is no longer the web master. At this time, I do not know who is responsible for posting content. That is a question that I planned to ask the borough manager before or after tonight's meeting. I remember it was him or a staff member who talked about the future of the website briefly about it during budget discussions.

2. The other Council Member from the Middle Ward has no contact information posted.

I am aware that he has no contact information.

3. The most recent Borough Council minutes are those for August 29, 2007. I believe that there have been Council meetings since then, with minutes being produced.

I was planning on emailing Paul certain information to be posted, but since he is no longer the web master, I cannot. I do not know at this time the borough's plan on keeping the website up-to-date, or at least better than what it currently is.

4. The site links to the Proposed 2008 Budget, although the actual budget, which is difference, was approved last month.

I do not know what is the situation with the website but I will bring to the manager's attention the point you raised.

5. The website states that "Our goal is to keep the community up to date with important information associated with the Government of the Borough." To whom does the pronoun "our" refer and what steps will you put in place toward the achievement of the stated goal?

I assume "our" is the borough. As far as achieving goal(s), I recall, I believe it was the manager, who stated that the website might be ran in the future by another person or company with maybe three hours per month for updating the website.


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Thanks,
Michael J. Handwerk

Anonymous said...

Then domain name is for fact owned by the Borough.

For some reason I am thinking it is hosted on one of the schools servers...don't quote me on that.

Anonymous said...

Since Mr. Handwerk reads this blog, I thought it would be appropriate to ask if he has followed up on his replies left to this site? It has been 3 days no response....Things that mmake you go uhhhmmmmm?