Rating the city's websites, part 2

Today, I figured it's time to go right to the top and take a look at Mayor Art Ward's city website.

First off, let's give the city credit for making sure that the page doesn't still tout Bill Stortz. At least someone updated it after Ward won the election.

And what a stellar picture of the new mayor, too! He's not going to win the Mr. America contest with that shot.

From the "Your Tax Dollars At Work" section to the right of the mayor's pictures, we learn that "Relocation of the Centre Mall tenants is almost complete and the demolition of the building is being addressed."

Yup, it sure is.

Over to the left are some little boxes to click on for more. At the top is "Mayor's Message." I couldn't wait to find out what the mayor had to say so I clicked on it. Unfortunately, the only thing I got was "THIS PAGE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION."

Disappointed, I tried the next box, labeled "Press releases." I wondered what I would find since I don't remember getting much in the way of press releases from Ward, which is fine by me. It turns out, though, that the only press releases on the site were issued by Stortz. This isn't a bad thing, of course, but Frank Johnson and perhaps Stortz are the only people I can think of who might enjoy browsing through them.

Below that is a link for contacting council members. I wondered what blasts from the past might show up, but what I got was an up-to-date PDF with the council's street addresses, email addresses and phone numbers. Bravo for that.

Underneath the council links is a "Downtown Update" that contains ... pictures of the mall coming down! It's too bad that the mayor's home page didn't catch that fact, but at least it's there somewhere.

The mayor's photo gallery, the only other thing on the site, has just one shot, of some cold-looking officials, including Ward, surrounded by children at the holiday parade.

So that's that. I'll be kind and give the mayor's website a C, but that's only because the average municipal website is awful.

Grades to date:

Mayor's office - C

Land use office - A

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Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

Blocking websites at City Hall

In the crush of election news, I never quite got around to writing about Mayor William Stortz's edicts in recent weeks that city employees no longer have web access to everything from Expedia to, well, the Bristol Blog.
The sites are blocked now by city computer, per the mayor's orders.
Naturally, this has riled up the workforce, who believe that spending a few minutes here and there online is at least as useful as dozing at their desks or wandering down the hall to chitchat.
One could even argue, as many of them do, that it should part of their jobs to keep an eye on websites like this one so they know what some portion of the public is talking about, griping about and wondering about.
The mayor, obviously, does not agree.
So when Art Ward takes the helm next week, he'll quickly be faced with the decision of whether to rescind Stortz's orders blocking access to much of the internet from city computers.
It's one of those "damned if you, damned if you don't" situations for Ward.
If he reverses Stortz's edict, some will say, then he's caving in to lazy city workers who just want to cruise the web instead of doing an honest job for the taxpayers.
If he doesn't, others will say, he's taking a hard line approach to the very employees who helped boost him into office with their money, time and moral support.
It's not for me to say which side is right, except that I would argue vigorously that blocking websites devoted to Bristol, including this one, is ridiculous. The online community for Bristol is just as real as Forestville or Chippens Hill, and attention to it is necessary for any government that's looking forward.

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Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com