We were talking a bit ago about how we are progressing on the Bring Back Sidney and the Cheyenne Observer pages. David Jansen and I were discussing BBS, information flow, where our county and cities are headed, etc. We have lots of ideas, hopes, dreams, and questions. When I joined this group I was really frustrated about how difficult it was to get information from our local governments. We have so many questions, as well as, we want to share information with fellow voters and get questions answered. David proposed developing the Cheyenne Observer. Now, I knew nothing about building a website or how to make pages; I knew nothing, zero. I'm a business leader and manager of projects and people. I haven't the faintest idea of how to create a website. Organizations pay people to design and build websites to flow information, that skill set is not on my resume; until 2 weeks ago.

We sat down and discussed what we wanted to do and how wanted to flow information about our county out to, not just new folks or visitors, but to long-time residents as well. We just saw and experienced a complete lack of information about where our county and cities are headed. The first couple of days were, "what the heck am I doing?" But then it started to click and we were off and running, making pages, writing articles, and trying to promote all the exciting things in our county, as well as, what we are seeing around the corner that concerned us. As we built the page, I asked questions and we corrected issues as we went along. Now, after 2 weeks I am by no means a master Web builder, BUT it is not that hard to correct error 404 and flow information. I learned to build on the site for a while and then go and do "debugging", as I call it. We checked every day, does the site function? Simple question, simple fix. This experience showed me that it is not that hard to create a functioning website that flows information and corrects it as you continue to build it. and it doesn't take too long to learn how to do it, even if you have zero experience.

One of the biggest questions and frustrations was how any government entity could not have a flowing, functioning, information-driven website; trust me funding the building of anything by the government has ever been a problem in my lifetime. Nothing is more frustrating than accessing a website and getting the message: Error 404, page not found. The link doesn't work. Congratulations, you've arrived at exit 404 on the information super highway. Time and time again go to some of the municipalities' websites and hit exit 404. And after informing those municipalities of the issues it just continues on and on, uncorrected. Why? I understand mistakes happen, but not correcting once you're aware? Why would a municipality not want a state-of-the-art functioning website that flows information to the voters/taxpayers with ease? Why would they not want information at the fingertips of people and answer all the FAQs? We see huge varying degrees of execution around our area when it comes to government websites, some are beautiful and flowing, and full of information about the county or city and where they are going. But for some its like they are stuck at exit 404 forever. Why such a big disparity between counties and cities in the execution and quality of websites? Is your county's or city's website stuck in the ditch at exit 404? Contact them, IF there is an email posted on the site for contact. Or go into the city or county office and let them know, maybe they are unaware. As I said earlier, it didn't take me that long to figure it out and learn. I asked questions and took some time to check and correct what we created each day. Information began to flow and the pages began to come together. It doesn't appear to be money, it doesn't appear to be the inability of a person to create and/or fix the site. So again I asked, why are some government websites stuck at Exit 404?