Libby Wetherholt, Clintonville Area Commission District 3 representative, admitted last week she was "a little surprised" at the vehemence with which some of her colleagues rejected the idea of the city sponsoring websites for all area commissions.

Libby Wetherholt, Clintonville Area Commission District 3 representative, admitted last week she was "a little surprised" at the vehemence with which some of her colleagues rejected the idea of the city sponsoring websites for all area commissions.

Wetherholt, chairwoman of the technology committee, reported at the June 2 session on a meeting she had with city officials regarding the concept of municipal-sponsored websites for the city-funded panels. The idea was not rejected out of hand, Wetherholt said, but it would not proceed without a consensus among all 13 of the area commissions.

At the June 2 session, she discovered there isn't even consensus on the Clintonville panel.

District 7 representative Jason Meek said he thinks a website hosted by the city "would likely be over-restraining."

Commission members might not be able to upload documents and announcements to the site, he suggested.

Matthew Cull of District 5 said if CAC members want to push for a city-hosted website, it would most likely be a long process and not one that he would favor.

"Either way, there's going to have to be money spent, time spent," Cull said.

The discussion comes amid efforts to restore and improve the website for the CAC, which went down for a lengthy period of time earlier in the year because it was hosted on an out-of-date platform. Clintonvilleareacommission.org was up and running again by March, but was a shadow of its former self.

Wetherholt said at the June 2 meeting that she had gotten together with Meek and Cull to discuss a total redesign for the restored website.

"We're thinking at this point that we'll depend on a professional to update it," she said.

Last week, Wetherholt expressed continued support for the idea of the city becoming a sort of webmaster for the area commissions.

"They give us money to work with and it is all city money, but our website is still not great and it's going to take a lot of effort and hours to get it back to where it used to be," she said. "It would be nice for all the area commissions to have some starting point, but you can't fight City Hall and you can't fight other area commissions."