Website Letter to City of Paris

September/2009

To: City Manager of Paris, Ky
Mayor
City Commissioners
525 High Street
Paris, Ky 40361

Subject: http://www.paris.ky.gov/ website

Dear Sirs:

Communication- How can we live together without it?
I would like to see you start giving us a chance to view a lot more of our government online. This is a Great Communication Tool for the City of Paris to let all citizens know what is going on in our local government. Currently you do have good information on this site, but it could be better. In this age of instant worldwide information you are missing a great opportunity to communicate to all Paris citizens that own a computer, the inter- workings of their local government on a daily basis.
Since I have attended several of the city commissioner meetings this year it has become very apparent to me, that city officials seem to be only fulfilling legal obligations by running ads in the Wednesday edition Bourbon County Citizen. This does satisfy state laws for you, but really doesn’t reach a majority of the local citizens to inform them what is going on in their local government.
The Bourbon Citizen does report on your commissioner meetings and it reaches all the people who actually pay for the paper. This paper does not reach every mailbox in this city. It’s counterpart, The Citizen Advertiser, which is free does reach every mailbox but doesn’t contain information about local government. So this leaves a lot of the people uninformed.
Remember always, That all residents of the City of Paris are your employer and you are the employee. We want to know how you are spending our money to keep our city safe, building our infrastructure, showcasing our town to the world, creating a better economy, and future plans you might envision to help our city.
I have spent time looking at other city/county website in Kentucky. Some are just absolutely loaded with information of their local government for their community. Others are just there with little information, few pictures and not much else. I believe with minimal effort your webmaster could turn http://www.paris.ky.gov/
into one that is absolutely loaded with information for us. The website needs to be maintained with current information and archives of past information.
I would like to offer the following list of items to be added to the website. Main menu tabs could be added for these items just below the existing Important Notices tab upper left hand corner of web page. This would enhance user friendliness of the website.
I am sure you already have electronic copies and it would just be a matter of uploading the files to the server. Then it would be minimal effort for the webmaster to produce web pages of the documents. This will be a great way to show transparency in our local government by posting them online. Other local government websites in Kentucky already do this and much more.
Items
A. Annual Budget for this Fiscal year, past years

B. Total Revenue and Sources

C. Accounts Receivable/Accounts Payable- Monthly

D. General Fund- Summary of expenditures by department- Monthly

E. Combined Utility Fund- Summary of expenditures by department- Monthly

F. Commissioner meetings -agenda and minutes of each meeting

G. Special Meetings- agenda and minutes of each meeting

H. Legal documents that you have to post in the newspaper, also post online.

I. Keep all ordinances current online

J. Salary -City Mgr.-Mayor -City Commissioners

K. All Salary Classifications of City Employees- With min./max. salary range of each class

Posting this information online will greatly improve communications between local government and the residents of this city. I know if you take time to really look at the website, you will see endless ideas yourself that should be posted to help inform citizens of this fine city.
This should be a great marketing tool for you. You should add the website url address http://www.paris.ky.gov/ to all your official documents if it isn’t already there. People will recognize it more and start using it for information.
Advertise the website in the local papers and encourage people to visit you online. Doing this will help get more people aware that there is a website they can visit and learn what is going on in their local government. I think you will see a lot more traffic to the website when enough people realize your website is full of good information.
You should also contact our state government and ask them to add a link from Kentucky official website http://www.ky.gov/ To your site. They have a link to cities & counties on their home page but Paris is not shown. This is just another way to communicate to more people and showcase Paris.
I would ask that you formally accept a copy of this letter and act upon it’s contents.

Thank you
John Marshall
Resident of Paris, Ky
　　
　
Just a few of many {Website Examples} below that post this Information
　
budget example- http://www.richmond.ky.us/ Click on Budget Documents
budget example- http://www.lexingtonky.gov/ Click on City Government
meetings & agendas- http://www.cynthianaky.com/
meetings & agendas- http://www.georgetownky.gov/
salaries & classifications- http://www.danvilleky.org/ Click on e-services - Document Center - Legislative/Executive - Ordinances - Ordinance1756
salaries - http://www.spencercountyky.gov/ Click on County Government - Financial Reports - Salaries