Posted by reaowner (anonymous) on November 11, 2009 at 5:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)

There's really nothing to the site as far as developing goes...pretty simple stuff. You could have saved some $$$ and did this yourself...

Posted by seriously (anonymous) on November 11, 2009 at 5:34 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I call foul on this. Where is the proof? Give us a link to see the numbers. Is this number unique visitors or page visits? It is a very basic site and as referenced could be maintained a lot cheaper. Why is this not included in the Information Technology contract?

Posted by dixiedreaming (anonymous) on November 11, 2009 at 5:56 p.m. (Suggest removal)

What the Advertiser is NOT telling and what the County offiicials are NOT telling is many of the hits to the website were done over and over again in a vain attempt to actually be able to USE the site. Every time I tried, my Internet Explorer would shut down. Thinking it was my PC, I tried at work later when I again needed information. AGAIN, my internet explorer was shut down. It also shut down on the Minooka Park site as well as the Higgins Ferry site. And, guess what, there are no email addresses for the webmaster! Only a phone number for Nashville Tennessee. There was absolutely no way of reporting the problem locally, I had no idea who to contact.

LAST WEEK, I finally called Nashville Tenness and talked to Racon (who answered the phone hello, this is not a regular company). The guy indicated when he pulled up the site in Internet Explorer, he too was shut down. He was surprised that no one has reported the problem before now. He did, immediately fix the problem which he later emailed me as being some corrupt files in the system.

I wrote the County Administrator wondering why no one has bothered to monitor this site. I also questioned why a local website was being outsourced to a company in Nashville when Chilton County has enough talent to do it. Why is it not maintained locally by the same company who handles the IT.

Well guess what, I got NO RESPONSE from our county administrator and I'm guessing she didn't bother to offer this information to the County Commission either!

Something stinks about this website and I'm so very surprised that I read that they have extended a contract with a company that (1) is out of state; (2) the County doesn't allow any email addresses to the webmaster to report a problem; (3) the website has produced no revenue from advertising as promised when the original contract was drawn and (4) there has been absolutely NO oversight in the development or use of this website since its inception known from the simple fact that if I could not access it from Internet Explorer and the creator of the website couldn't access it from IT and most people utilized IE for their browser, I'd guess much of the reported "hits" to the website were repeated "hits" because no one has been able to access it.

Our County Commission really needs to begin doing their homework in running this County because I think their job performance is the pits.

What is so great and wonderful about this site as opposed to the old one? Is it the picture of the beautiful building on the front page which leads one to believe THAT's Chilton County when that is not even a county owned building?

Posted by reaowner (anonymous) on November 11, 2009 at 9:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)

There's absolutely no web 2.0 about this site. No interaction between the administration and the audience...no reasonable way to leave feedback. Quit blowing money on your wife's brother's sister-in-laws boyfriend who knows how to manipulate a little html.

Posted by November162000 (anonymous) on November 11, 2009 at 10:27 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I had the same problem with Internet Explorer shutting down. Let me see if I've got this straight; the website developer lied to the commission about the advertising, the usability of the site did/does suck, and the commission renewed the contract? I suppose there's some intelligence in there somewhere, I just don't know where. This is the same brain trust that thinks it's just dandy to throw money at Minooka Park when we are FLAT BROKE. Mighty curious.

Posted by November162000 (anonymous) on November 12, 2009 at 9:08 a.m. (Suggest removal)

I think you're on to something, Barn.

Posted by dixiedreaming (anonymous) on November 12, 2009 at 12:24 p.m. (Suggest removal)

November, I don't think the website developer lied to the Commission, I'm not sure why the advertising was never sold. I also don't want to cast dispersions on this website developer because it wasn't his fault that no one had contacted him regarding the problems with the site. He stated it was the COUNTY's decision NOT to provide any email contact on the site. In fact, the only email you'll find is the person who handles the County's IT. He appears to be local and was happy to give me whatever information he had, but that was only Raycon's website which shows nothing but a Nashville address. Once the website developer learned of the problem, he had it fixed within a half hour. He expressed total suprise that no one had reported it before I called him.

My point was, obviously no one on the Commission or within the County Administration ever tried to access this site or find out any public comment or they would have known it simply didn't work because had they, too, used IT, they would have shut down also.

My problem, further, is that when this was emailed and explained to the County Administrator, I never even received a "thank you" and then the VERY NEXT week I read this crazy writeup bragging about the number of hits.

Well I can tell you, probably 100 of those "hits" were repeated attempts by me to access it. Now I read others experience the same thing and, like me, attributed it to our PC's firewalls, etc.

I agree KW, these folks need to go.

Posted by larry (anonymous) on November 12, 2009 at 12:33 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Web sits are so easy to build even a caveman (correction-The Clanton Advertiser0 can do it.