After months of discussion and debate, the Winchester Board of Commissioners Tuesday unanimously approved an order authorizing a new city website.
Commissioner Kitty Strode made the motion to approve the order, and Commissioner Kenny Book seconded the motion.
The order authorizes a website re-design, hosting and the implementation of a Web content management system by the Kansas-based CivicPlus, for $26,976. That amount includes on-site training for city staff on the website, and has already been accounted for in the 2013 budget.
Mayor Ed Burtner, who has encouraged other community bodies to step up to the table and help fund the project, said there’s no question that a new website is needed, but he stressed that this website is not a community website.
“The community’s not going to do a website, the City of Winchester is going to do a website and the City of Winchester is going to pay for a website,” he said. “And that is largely the issue that I’ve had with this from the very beginning.”
The current Winchester website has not been updated since 2008, Burtner said, and it has outdated information.
“I know to do this right — and we need to do this right — it’s going to cost some money,” he said.
Strode said that with all of the positives happening in the community, a new website is needed.
CivicPlus, a private firm that specializes solely in creating and maintaining community websites, has provided Henderson and Danville’s community sites.
