By Chad Ingram

The County of Haliburton along with the Township of Minden Hills and Municipality of Highlands East will put out a joint request for proposals for the redesign of their websites.

“The current website is just over five years old it’s not mobile-friendly” county IT director Mike March told councillors on the finance and correspondence committee during an April 10 meeting.

“There is no email subscription component for e-communications to ratepayers and staff have mentioned that updating information on certain websites can be cumbersome” a report from March read.

The current County of Haliburton website was done in-house.

Minden Hills and Highlands East each have aging websites as well with redesigns on the books for 2019 so a joint RFP will be sent out. The county has $15000 in its 2019 budget for a website redesign.

Algonquin Highlands Deputy Mayor Liz Danielsen wanted to know why all the townships had not been involved. March said he was aware that Algonquin Highlands had created a new website in the recent past.

Dysart et al will be creating a new website in-house.

“Is there an opportunity later on for us to piggyback on this?” Dysart et al Deputy Mayor Pat Kennedy asked.

There was indication that could be the case and county chief administrative officer Mike Rutter said the fee structure on the RFP could be changed in such a way as to give the two other townships a chance to opt in should they wish.

Minden Hills Mayor Brent Devolin thought there would be room for collaboration.

“It’s kind of like building cars on the same platform” Devolin said.

The RFP closes May 9 and the plan is for county council to award the contract during a June 26 meeting.

“It could be a three- to six-month project once it gets started” March said.