ELYRIA — A poorly designed, user-hostile Web site and employees who are stretched thin caring for hundreds of personal computers, laptops and printers to do anything about it.

That pretty much sums up what Elyria has to offer residents in the way of Internet presence.

Ever try to go online and find out what’s happening at the next City Council meeting or sign up your youngster for swimming or ice skating lessons? It doesn’t take too long or too much time searching to figure out you can’t do either at www.cityofelyria.org. 

And it’s time to change that, said Mayor Bill Grace, who is proposing a plan to establish a more-defined Information Technology Department.

CITYOFELYRIA.ORG

The city of Elyria’s Web site is in for a change if Mayor Bill Grace has his way.

He would like to see a Web site where residents can sign up for parks and recreation activities or find out where trash or leaf pick-up trucks are with a Global Positioning System. The city Web site has to be a more informative and interactive resource for residents, he said.

The city’s current Web site is beyond description, said City Councilman Vic Stewart, D-at large.

Stewart voted in favor of the measure when it was first discussed at a Finance Committee meeting, knowing it would include pay raises for the city’s three current IT employees, as well as the hiring of a new Web developer and a geographic information systems technician and the hiring of two replacement IT support technicians.

“The Web site is terrible,” he said. “A city of our size should have a Web site that is functional — a place where residents can go and do real business.

Finally, focusing on technology will be an investment that will pay off in the end for the city.”

The proposed department would focus on four areas: hardware, software, communication and connectivity and user development, Grace said. It will be a seven-person department responsible for maintaining 23 servers, 256 personal computers, 30 laptops, 90 printers, five Web sites and 15 different software applications spread across 16 separate network locations.

In addition, the IT department will be the go-to place for help and training for the city’s 400 other employees, he said.

State of the city

It’s not as if the city does not have any IT staffers.

Three city employees, Koury Henderson, Brian Rothgery and Jonette Brewer, currently share the duties.

Henderson, who has an office in City Hall, has a base salary of $49,930.03 and is a virtual jack-of-all-trades, working on systems and computers all over the city while Rothgery, $51,522.20, and Brewer, $36,386.36, work out of the Police Department.

In 2007, four additional employees and one consultant worked with them. However, the employees have since retired, and the outside consultant was eliminated.

“That’s just not a responsible way to manage the city’s computer systems,” Grace said. “We can have a better system for less. That’s the message that we can’t lose focus on. With all the additional services we can provide, it can be done for $25,000 less than what we did it last year.”

Grace’s proposal calls for splitting funding for the department among the general fund (40 percent), Water Department (25 percent), Wastewater Department (25 percent) and Sanitation Department (10 percent).

The proposal pushes Rothgery’s base pay to $65,993, Henderson to $53,766 and Brewer to $41,163.20.

Web site worries

Using the “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it” concept  doesn’t work when it’s your Internet presence that’s broken.

Poor Web sites do nothing to help cities and businesses, said Shawn Griffin, regional director of AmericanEagle.com in Westlake, a Web site design company.

Griffin has not been hired by Elyria to develop a Web site, but his company designed North Ridgeville’s Web site, www.nridgeville.org.

“Really, it’s much better to have no Internet presence than to have one that says nothing more than ‘Hi, I’m Elyria. Goodbye,’ ” Griffin said. “Web sites provide a service to existing residents and to people who could potentially work with or move to the city.”

Ideal Web sites allow residents to pay bills, download documents, view permits or conduct just about anything that once started with a phone call Griffin said.

Vulnerabilities exist

The current IT situation means that nearly all departments are without adequate support, including the auditor’s, utilities and fire departments, Grace said. 

System development doesn’t exist, and the city’s Web site — the first place for people to peek at Elyria — has become a non-priority.

In Lorain, www.cityoflorain.org is the place where residents can view a constantly updated calendar of events, pay utility bills, view City Council agendas, minutes and ordinances and leave a comment or question for Mayor Tony Krasienko. Lorain Auditor Ron Mantini maintains and updates the Web site.

It was first launched in October 2003 with the help of an Elyria Web site development company, Emerge.

“We have a lot of information on the site, and it’s really easy to navigate. That’s what seems to be drawing people to the site,” Mantini said.

In 2004, the site averaged about 14,000 views per month, but this year Mantini said it gets about 218,000 views per month.

“It keeps people from calling for information because it serves as a good starting point,” he said.

Elyria city coffers, which are kept in check by several software systems, are safe, city Auditor Ted Pileski said. The department receives some support from software vendors.

“But that leaves us a little vulnerable with our servers, hardware, in-house programs,” he said. “We’ve just grown to the point where everyone is getting on the network to do purchase orders, and we need someone with a little bit more expertise to be available should something happen.”

Pileski said the new department would allow the Building Department to join the other service departments in linking transactions to the auditor’s office, which would make it easier to ensure funds are more adequately tracked.

Upgrades are not easily accomplished when Henderson is constantly running on “maintain mode” — working only  on what is broken, Grace said.

Beyond Web site development, Lorain has a three-person IT department within the auditor’s department. The IT director has a salary of $59,140, while a network administration makes $43,916 and a desktop specialist earns $38,930.

While the department is smaller than Mantini would like, it keeps the city technologically humming along beautifully, he said.

“The network goes down very few times, we have a lot of software securing our network and Internet sites, and we haven’t had any major virus intrusions,” he said. “It would be irresponsible to run the system without an IT Department.”

Yet differing opinions exist on whether now is the time to hire more employees outside of police officers and firefighters. It’s easy to feel a little apprehensive about spending money when there is a looming income tax renewal issue on the November ballot and a sense of discontent among residents about how city officials spend their money.

Still, Grace is willing to argue that now is the time to create the department and the positions needed to run it, he said.

“We had so many retirements last year that now is the time to do it,” he said. “Essentially, we will be starting over and creating a department where computer people take directions from computer people, not non-computer people like we have been doing it.”

Contact Lisa Roberson at 329-7121 or lroberson@chroniclet.com.

---

Print this story
Report an inappropriate comment

---

In order to comment, you must agree to our user agreement and discussion guidelines.

Need help? Email Us.

---