In an effort to cut costs, the town of Guilderland is filing for an efficiency grant to consolidate its Web site with that of the Village of Altamont.
The town has to file for the state grant by Wednesday, Feb. 11, and can choose whether or not to accept the grant if it is awarded.
The Tuesday, Feb. 3, Town Board meeting featured recommendations by board member Warren Redlich to overhaul the Web site, and potentially find a new host to run the site.
Town Supervisor Ken Runion said a response to the application could be expected in the fall at the earliest.
The Town Board will then vote to choose to accept the grant. Runion stressed that the economy or the technology could change over the next few months, and that could affect the application.
Runion said the application for the local efficiency grant is an attempt to tap one of the few resources available to municipalities.
It’s about the only grant program that’s left, Runion said.
He said the Village of Altamont and the town could share software to run the Web sites together and save the money they spend to individually license the software.
Yearly maintenance of the site is approximately $3,500. The Village of Altamont pays the same amount, but under the grant, the municipalities would need to pay only one amount.
Both towns would maintain individual Web addresses, but could link to each other.
`It would appear as if the two Web sites were integrated,` Runion said.
He also said the town is also looking to add video to the Web site to broadcast town, planning and zoning board meetings.
The broadcasts could also feature closed captioning.
He said the initial cost to run video would include purchasing an encoder, which could run close to $11,000, however the grant application would cover $10,000 of it.
Runion said the new video feature would allow meetings to be bulleted and chaptered, so one could watch individual agenda items without viewing the entire meetings.
Town board member Warren Redlich said he has had success with Web sites related to his law firm and blog, and said the town could provide a better Web site while spending less money.
`I’m very focused on the Internet,` Redlich said. `I see the value of the Internet.`
He said www.GoDaddy.com could host the sites for $5, an address could be purchased for close to $10 and Google video could provide an outlet to broadcast meetings for free.
He said the space is unlimited, unlike Virtual Town Hall, the service that the town is looking at using. Virtual Town Hall can store up to 100 hours of video.
Runion said he is concerned that the free services would make it so that anyone could download the videos and tamper with them. He said Virtual Town Hall does not allow video downloads, only viewings.
`You have to have security and control over the site,` Runion said. `At least you know the original hasn’t been doctored.`
Redlich retorted that an original copy of the meeting could be kept on file.
Also, anyone could record the meetings and post tampered versions on the Internet if they wanted to.
`There’s no loss of control if you post it on Google video,` Redlich argued.
Redlich said the easiest way to upload videos to the Internet would be achieved by upgrading digital cameras for filming, but he is unsure how much that would cost.
He also said having a Web site where department heads, employees and even residents can add content and blog could be a potential for future upgrades.
Right now several town employees update the site and fill it with content.
That would not change if the grant were accepted.
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