Saturday, February 4, 2012

Media Borough Council, Where'd the $15,000 go for the website?

Last October Media Borough launched a new website at the expense of $15,000.  This was initiated by borough council at the direction of Councilpersons', Eric Stein and Monica Simpson.  The benefits touted were ease of use, better functionality and an upgrade to document management.

We are now into 2012 and I, along with residents are not seeing a whole lot of benefit from the price paid for this new site.  

The front page has no mention of a Facebook or Twitter link which come in handy for timely information.  Meeting minutes that are suppose to be posted, are missing for certain committees.  One of the most important safety features recently created, the Borough Notification System, is hard to find and isn't even on the main page.  In addition, when a Google search is done, it brings up outdated pages of the old site!  In fact, much, if not all of the old site is still up and functioning.

Not only do we have an incomplete borough site with less features and organization, but a cost to taxpayers of $15,000! I don't have a problem with information technology spending, but I do have a problem when it's questionable what value or improvement the spending has had. 

EAC Page For Meeting Minutes April 2011




4 comments:

  1. I definitely think that any group in Media, non-profit or otherwise who receives funds from the borough should post their meeting minutes promptly.

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  2. Let it go, man! It was money well spent to give an unqualified Democratic foot soldier a resume point to help get him elected!

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  3. If anyone wanted proof that the Media Business Authority and Media Borough does not actually support local businesses look no further. The company they hired to redesign their website is from Oregon. With dozens of local web design firms they opted to hire someone out of state. The design itself looks very outdated and does not have a "local" feel to it at all because it is done from a template with few changes.

    As far as Meeting Minutes are concerned; I've emailed them many times requesting minutes be posted and each time they magically appeared right after my email. Someone is not doing their job over there.

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  4. It's poor management all the way. Borough has it's own 'Webgate' scandal now. Incompetence with access to the cookie jar...

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