West City's web site will return

WEST CITY — West City village officials have entered into an agreement with a vendor to reinstate its web site.
Village Treasurer Carol Bates and Chief of Police Scott Choisser encouraged the village board to redevelop the web site after officials voted at an earlier meeting — following a recommendation from its legal counsel — to take the site down since it was not complying with regulations.
In a unanimous vote, the village board agreed to hire Ashley Watson through Novacom for a one-year period at a cost of $200 per month.
"We can use photographs to make it attractive, but for information, to limelight our businesses and the good parts of our departments," said Bates.
"She offered to come up here and take pictures of all the businesses and post them on the web site. We thought about picking one out for a Business of the Month and a brief history and switching them around," said Choisser.
He added the village has many forms and applications that could be placed on the web site.
Village Attorney Ron Giacone said a code of ordinances, meeting minutes and agenda must be placed on the web site in a timely manner in order to be complaint.
"The last time we did it, we weren't keeping it up so then we're in violation of the law," Giacone said. "You need to make sure you have someone on hand that's going to keep it up."
Bates recommended putting the web site under construction until all of the content — including those elements which are mandatory — has been assembled.
"We shouldn't make the move until we know that everything is in place and we can keep it going timely," Bates said.
Watson would not be responsible for updating the web site, she added, indicating that responsibility would fall on a village employee.
Village President Ron House is in favor of updating the web site.
"The village is growing. We need to have some kind of tool out there. It's the electronic age. We've got to keep up and keep our village posted and visual," he said.
In other business, the village entered into an agreement with Affordable Gas & Electric, an electric broker based in Mt. Vernon, to provide electric supply through Homefield Energy for several municipal accounts at a rate of 5.219 cents for one year and for the street light account at a cost of 3.160 cents for one year. The current rates the village is paying for these services through Ameren run about 2 to 3 cents higher per kilowatt hour.