At our September 27, 2016 meeting we voted 11-4 to approve $2,000 for security improvements, additional features, and a redesign of our website. We also had a presentation from Henry Symons,, the staff person for Yes on Measure B about the phone banks reaching out to El Cerrito voters to Get Out the Vote (GOTV) to pass Measure B; and we began to prepare materials for distribution to voters.
ECDC Member Nick Arzio registered his objection to the editorial I had posted on our website regarding systematic “No Endorsement” votes (http://ecdclub.dev.haveabyte.com/?p=1410). He noted that “no endorsement” is permitted in our standing rules. I still believe that we have a comprehensive endorsement process, and that it comes with the responsibility to provide guidance to voters wherever possible.
UPDATE ON WEBSITE PROJECT
To recap, our website, www.ecdclub.org had stopped functioning twice between January and July. In addition, hackers from Ukraine, China, India, Canada, and several other countries attempt to hack our site daily. In response to these problems, our Vice President of Communications, Kip Crosby, sought recommendations and received a comprehensive proposal.
I am happy to report that we have already begun; our consultant works with numerous websites that use the application we use (WordPress), provides hosting with aggressive security, and has successfully migrated many sites. He has backed up our site which will minimize disruption during the process of migrating our site away from its current host, and has discussed numerous improvements. I’m hopeful that we will complete the migration and security phases of this project by the end of this year, and will be able to receive advice from new officers elected at our January, 2017 meeting in the re-design phase.