Dual Des Plaines’ websites cause grief for some

The city of Des Plaines’ redesigned website costs the city less and has a cleaner look, officials said last week. Yet, the former website is still accessible online, which has been confusing for some residents who complain they can’t find certain city information on either site.

A couple of residents complained at last week’s city council meeting that they were having trouble finding meeting agendas, minutes and board packets.

That’s because the city stopped updating its former website — cityofdesplaines.org — after all archived material and information had been transferred to its new website — desplaines.org — that went live Sept. 2, said Will Soderberg, city media specialist.

“When you’re transferring over hundreds of pages, we can’t maintain the old site anymore,” Soderberg said. “It’s basically (there) for us to still have a backup.” The former city website will be gone by month’s end, he added.

The new website can be maintained in-house and city employees have direct control over the content versus managing it through a third party, Soderberg said.

The city was spending more than $30,000 yearly on the former website. It is now paying $15,650 yearly for three years, which includes the cost of the initial design and set up, and yearly maintenance.

One of the drawbacks of the new website is that audio and video recordings of city council meetings are no longer available.

“The audio and video postings were something specific to the old site,” Soderberg said. “The new site has very limited ability to post short videos.”

To change that, the city would have to spend up to $10,000 yearly, Soderberg said. That also would provide the city with enhanced capabilities for live streaming local cable Channel 17 content.

“There’s various philosophies of how much online media is necessary,” Soderberg said. “We’re in a tough budgetary climate. I request it every chance I get. The question is, is the demand there? What we need is to come up with a social media policy.”

Soderberg said once the city implements newer communication tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, residents would be able to get automatic notifications about meetings.