Magnolia aldermen voted Tuesday night to approve a contract with U.S. Next to create a new website for the city.
Alderwoman Mercedes Ricks said during the board meeting that the city has been trying to get a site up and running for 31⁄2 years.
Now, the city won’t have to wait much longer.
During the work session Monday, the board heard from David Crawford, a representative with U.S. Next.
The company builds websites for municipalities, counties and state agencies. In Mississippi, the company has built websites for the cities of Philadelphia, Flowood, Madison and Grenada, and the counties of Madison, Covington, Leake, Clay, Sharkey, Neshoba and Adams.
Crawford said the company has also worked with the Mississippi Forestry Commission and the Mississippi State Ratings Bureau.
He said when he and his team went to cityofmagnoliams.com, they found it to be in Japanese with a picture of a cat.
“But that’s not our website,” Mayor Anthony Witherspoon said.
“It is your website. You just don’t know it is,” Crawford replied.
He showed aldermen an proposed mock website he created for Magnolia.
“It has a picture of a golf course, I know the course is in Fernwood but it’s not that far from here,” he said.
He also told aldermen that tickets and utilities can also be paid on the website. Crawford said the city can also have headshots of the mayor and aldermen on the website also.
“We charge a $400 set-up fee and it’s $99 a month. We re-design it every three years,” he said, “Entergy has an economic development grant. We would submit it and do all the paperwork. It’s quick and easy. It’s $1,000, which would take care of the set-up fee and six months” of service.
Crawford told the mayor and aldermen that if they were not happy with the service, they didn’t have to pay for it.
“It’s only $1,200 a year plus the set-up fee, so the city will only pay $1,650. I’m sure we have some miscellaneous funds we can use. If not, I think we can handle that,” Witherspoon said Tuesday night at the board meeting, “This is doable, and with the grant, definitely doable.”
Alderman Joe Cornacchione asked Crawford Monday if there was a fee to add on a tab or change something.
“No, there’s no fee. It’s a part of the package. There’s a content manager on the site that admins can go in and move this around, or if you prefer, you can call or e-mail us, and we’ll do it,” Crawford said.
Witherspoon asked if the website was social media-capable.
“Yes, it does interface with social media. I saw that you guys don’t have a Facebook page. We can set that up for you also,” Crawford said.
Witherspoon also asked if board meetings could be uploaded to the site, adding that the Tuesday board meetings are televised, and the city wanted to be able to link the meetings to their website.
“Yes, we can do that. If you look on Madison County’s website, you’ll see that they have that feature set up,” he said.
Those in attendance saw a more immediate change, as the city moved away from paper agendas and began projecting the agenda on a screen, while aldermen use new tablets to stay on task. Aldermen received the tablets at the end of their board meeting in January.
“We’re trying to become a little more green,” Witherspoon said, adding that more and more people are going paperless.
In other news, the board:
• Approved the appointment of June Wilcher of Ward 3 and Menard Pounds of Ward 1 to the Mayoral Health Council.
• Authorized a resolution on behalf of Witherspoon and the board in support of the National Dear Father Movement founded by NAACP Image Award and Grammy Award winning poet and author J. Ivy.
• Authorized advertisement of a public hearing on March 6 to be published Feb. 16, regarding the city applying for a Small Cities Community Development Block Grant.
• Awarded Neel-Schaffer the CDBG proposal and grant and the Ferguson Group the administrative proposal.
• Accepted the resignation of Trideana Lenard as Municipal Election Commissioner and John Mark Bestoca as police officer.
• Approved Laurie Evans, Rosezea Scott and Cynthia Richardson to attend Clerk Certification with mileage and meal reimbursement.
•Approved Detective Randy Perryman, Chief Ray Reynolds and Glory McCray to attend Crime Scene to Courtroom Training, Mississippi Law Enforcement Officer Training Academy and Administrative Clerk Training plus mileage and meal reimbursement.
•Hired Katrina Badon has a part-time Traffic Monitor and Assistant Clerk for the Magnolia Police Department.
•Approved a firework show for the 11th anniversary of LaMariposa Restaurant owned by Alderwoman Mercedes Ricks.
Ricks recused herself from the vote.
•Approved a Interlocal Agreement between the city via the municipal election commissioner, Pike County via the Election Commission, and Democratic and Republican municipal executive party committees to provide technical assistance and use of electronic voting machines for the primary and general elections at $1,500.
•Approved purchasing a full page ad for the South Pike JROTC Military Ball for $150 and a 1/8 ad for Perspective 2017 for $250.
•Partnered with the Magnolia/South Pike Chamber of Commerce to provide support for the Magnolia Mardi Gras Parade and Festival Feb. 18 and 19, not to exceed $1,500.
•Remitted payments to Greenbriar DSLP for $35,739 for the 2016 North Street Extension Project Neel-Schaffer for $15,038.91 for the 2016, Mill and Overlay Project, Park Improvement Project and 2016 General Services Agreement.
