FARMINGTON — The town has received several requests for copies of the proposal to “design an attractive user-friendly website” for the town, but few submissions have come in.

More entries may arrive before the deadline at 4 p.m. Tuesday, June 18, Mark Caldwell, town assessor, said.

Caldwell is serving on a committee formed to explore a new website design for the town. Others on the committee include Town Manager Richard Davis, Cindy Gelinas from Code Enforcement, deputy police Chief Shane Cote and a citizen, James House, who has the knowledge to provide technology information and answer committee questions, Gelinas explained.

The committee will review the submissions when they meet Friday, and perhaps bring one of them before the Board of Selectmen when they meet on Tuesday.  That’s the plan, Caldwell said.

The website dates back to the late 1990s. A few things have been added, but it has changed little since then, Caldwell said.

It was created using an older version of Microsoft FrontPage, which is no longer supported by Microsoft or some hosting sites, he said.

While the town has wanted to change the format for some time, there was a concentrated effort to focus on the website at the beginning of the year, when viewers started having problems accessing it.

Some were not getting on to the website, or the buttons needed to navigate around the site weren’t showing up, Caldwell said. The page would ask for the viewer to download another program.

When the town learned that the Microsoft program would no longer be supported by the hosting company at the end of March, the search was stepped up, she said.

Selectmen approved forming the committee and then approved their proposal, only requesting that it go out to bid, she said.

The committee researched programs that work with features the town may add to its site in the future. The three systems being considered are Joomla, WordPress and Drupal.

Along with the content now on the town website, the committee hopes to add a better picture gallery and more information on the front page, as well as making the site more user friendly, Caldwell said.

The town’s police and fire departments, which both already have their own websites, would be included within the town website. Three town departments, Public Works, Wastewater and Parks and Recreation, would be added to the site, according to the proposal qualifications.

The proposal requests that the new website “allow users to find and download applications, ordinances and other information.” It will also provide the ability for town personnel “to create forms for website visitors to fill out and submit and allow the town, in the future, to accept and process credit card and ecommerce payments,” according to the proposal.

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