The Website is Up!!

During the 2010 Election, transparency in county government was an issue we in the Milam County GOP took very serious. Our former County Judge said a county website was too expensive and would take too much time to maintain. Due to those expenses we could not justify setting up a new website for the County. Cost figures from $20,000 to $40,000 were thrown out when questions on this subject arose. Guess what; it didn’t cost much after all!

Maybe it wasn’t the cost of the website but the cost of making access to information too easy, but I digress.

In the end, the web service the county uses to host their emails was used to host the website for no additional cost to the county. So thanks to the hard work and dedication of Mike Brown and others, Milam County now has a website that is both user friendly and user helpful.

All the county departments are listed and you can find contact information for them all. Forms that have required a visit to the county offices in the past are now available online. You want a copy of the County Budget, click on it and print it on your printer. That’s right; no longer must you make a trip to the County Clerk’s office at a cost of $1.00 a page (costing as much as $75.00 for the whole budget).

Want to see where the money is spent and what bills are paid by the county – it’s on there. You want access to the County Appraisal District Database – it’s on there. You want to see the agenda or minutes from a Commissioner’s Court Meeting – it’s on there. Lots of the information that many people have wanted access to is also on there, just like in most other counties in Texas.

Some information is not there yet, but it’s on the way. Soon there will be maps for the county, court docket lists, a user feedback section to tell the county what you want to see as well as other parcels of information many people have wanted to see for some time now.

Another nice function of this website and its professional appearance is that people and businesses looking to do commerce here now have a central county website that they can look at. That way they can find the information they desire about the county as well as links to county departments and other websites in the county such as chambers of commerce and municipal websites.

Having been to many conferences on economic development, many business people tell me a strong county website is invaluable in attracting business. Being in an oilfield service business I can tell you that a solid county website make a huge difference when I am making plans for the future of my business.

So take a few seconds and go to www.milamcounty.net and check out the new county website. I think you’ll be quite impressed by the quality and quantity of the information.

Thanks for all the hard work,
Bill

Thanks for the Support, the Website’s on the Way!!

I have been very grateful for the kind words and congratulatory sentiments we have received since the election and for the newfound openness and availability to the elected officials here in Milam County. The folks I have spoken to around the county have been thankful and pleasantly surprised with the openness and availability they have had with Judge Barkemeyer and the rest of the public officials here in Milam County and in the State House. Many folks said they noticed a feeling of a fresh new start for Milam County.

I spoke with one of our incumbent Democrats and they reported that it is much easier to approach our Commissioners’ Court and to discuss the issues that are affecting their ability to adequately conduct business in the office they hold. They informed me that we might have had some rough spots at the start, but there is a movement to conduct business in a manner that supports a correct, ethical, and fair manner of doing business that can and will benefit all the citizens of Milam County. As we have all seen by the revelations made since January 1st, there is a better more open way of doing business that will allow the public to have a better idea of how their county government is operating.

The candidates of the Republican Party of Milam County ran for election based on a plan aimed at Getting Milam County back to Work. That plan began with making Milam County Government better by making it more efficient and less expensive; that is the part of the process that is being worked on currently. I could go into the reasons for how difficult this process is, but that would mean finger-pointing and accusations that don’t do any good. What is needed now is to get to work to recover lost revenues from unpaid past-due fines and penalties, eliminate and/or replace out-of-date technologies, and to begin the process or running county government as it is required to be run based on state guidelines and laws.

The next project that will be readily visible to the public will be to bring an official Milam County website online in the next few months. A site that will give important information such as contact information for all the government departments of Milam County, burn ban notifications, emergency notifications, and give access to Milam county business documents like the county budget, checkbook and important notices just to name a few. This is generally the first contact a perspective business has with a county prior to considering doing business in a county and is such a basic piece of information technology that most businesses deem a county backwards if it is without a website. Now we all know Milam County is not a backward by any means, but without a decent official website to provide the county’s basic information, how is a perspective employer to know the difference.

Well that’s going to have to suffice for today. I need to get outside and enjoy a little snow time with the kids. Hope you all have had a wonderful wintery day. Be safe and hopefully we’ll see you all at the Republican Women’s Fundraiser celebrating President Reagan’s Birthday and the Birth of the Republic of Texas, at 6:00 pm next Thursday, February 10th, at the VFW in Cameron. If you need tickets you can ask any of the members of the Republican Women of Milam County or any of the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Milam County. All their contact information can be found at www.milamgop.org.

Be Careful Out There,
Bill