Berryville gets new website

The city of Berryville has a new website.

At the Berryville City Council’s regular meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 1, council members heard from James Generaux of SkippITs.com, the company that has built the new website, berryvillear. gov.

“It’s a little bit redesigned,” Generaux said. “It’s modernized. It took us a year and a half to build it. It’s a brand-new website and it’s really a thing of beauty.”

The city also now has a Facebook page, Generaux said.

“We’ll be helping with that. And then it shows upcoming events. And then, of course, there’s a blog post.”

Where the website “really shines,” Generaux said, is under the four tabs at the top of the page, labeled “Residents,” “Business,” “Government” and “About Berryville.”

Each tab has a dropdown menus that allows users to click on links to pages about specific topics.

“There are many, many pages,” Generaux said. “It’s almost a 150-page website that shows all the information. It is very comprehensive.”

The company also redesigned the city’s logo, Generaux said, and will be designing business cards and stationery.

“We want to create a consistent brand across all departments,” he said.

Mayor assistant Jay Lee said the city recently signed up for a service called TextMyGov, which allows citizens to communicate with the city government via text message.

“It’s basically to get information out to the citizens,” Lee said. “And then also if they sign up for the service, they can also text them through their phone. They can get us messages on potholes that need to be fixed, on trees that are dangerous, on animal control issues. And that comes into us via email. Outgoing messages, we can use this service to send out messages to anybody that signed up for the service, for boil orders, for events, basically whatever we deem worthy of sending out a message. … That’s prominently displayed on the new website when you’re on the blog on how to sign up for that service.” In other business, the council approved a resolution authorizing Mayor Tim McKinney to enter into a contract to purchase the former Entergy building at 613 S. Main St. for $429,500. The council had voted to that effect at its Oct. 18 meeting, but Lee said a formal resolution was necessary.

The council also heard an update on the Saunders Museum, which drew 261 visitors in October — up from 149 in October 2021. The museum brought in admission payments and donations of $1,716.50 for the month, a big increase over the $950.50 it brought in a year earlier.

City council member Linda Riddlesperger, who volunteers at the museum, said a car club brought visitors to the museum from across the country.

“They were from everywhere,” Riddlesperger said. “There were two transport loads from Pennsylvania, at least one transport load from California. There’s no telling how many states were represented.”

Saturday, Nov. 5, was the museum’s final day of being open this year.

During his mayoral comments, McKinney said construction is proceeding on a dog park at the Berryville Community Center. He also recommended that the council renew its contract with Kelley Commercial Partners, a commercial real estate service.

“It’s one of those contracts that costs us money if we use it,” McKinney said, saying the city paid $4,300 in 2020. “This year, we haven’t spent a penny. I think it’s a good thing. If nothing else, they have contacts with companies that they can call and talk to the decision-makers. So I think we should renew that.”

The council then voted 4-0 to renew the agreement for three years.