Galloway Democrats Introduce New Website

Two days after Galloway Township Council discussed hiring an outside party to redesign the township’s official website, the Galloway Democratic Club announced its own website redesign was complete.

“The club has had discussions about modernizing our site”, Democratic Club President, Kevin Krumaker said in a release issued Thursday night, Feb. 28. "Our secondary concern was to keep costs low. I believe we have achieved both goals by creating a clean, modern and easy to navigate website."

Those low costs had to do with domain registration, site development and yearly fee, according to Krumaker.

“The web site development technology tools have progressed rapidly, to the point, that it was a ‘no brainer' for the GDC not to take advantage,” Krumaker said. “You can produce a professional site, in a short amount of time, for minimal cost.”

The new site also features uploaded videos of council meetings. The most recent council meeting, on Feb. 26, has already been uploaded to the site. Selected meeting videos have been posted up to 11 months ago.

“It is the Club's belief that our municipality should be taking the lead in transparency by posting meetings online,” Krumaker said. “One advantage of posting videos online is they can be viewed long after they are posted, at the convenience of the viewer. Realizing that work and family responsibilities sometimes make it difficult for residents to attend Council meetings, the Galloway Democratic Club has made it possible for the public to view the meetings on our site",

Links to Facebook and Twitter have also been incorporated into the site, as well as links to local news websites.

According to Krumaker, he was responsible for the upgrade to the website, which took place over a five-day period. He said he received input from members of the club.

“The new site is clean, modern and easier to navigate than the previous version,” Krumaker said.

Readers can visit the Galloway Democratic Club’s website by clicking on the following link: http://www.gallowaydemocraticclub.com/.

On Tuesday night, council discussed the decision to put out an RFP to upgrade the township website. The RFP calls for bids of no more than $10,000 to upgrade the site to comply with state guidelines.  This would include the posting of public documents in order to cut down the number of Open Public Records Act (OPRA) requests that the township has had to deal with the past few years.

Responses to the township’s RFP are due back March 15. The RFP is on the township’s website, which readers can visit by clicking here.