The development and maintenance contract for the town's Web site is due to be awarded and 20 firms submitted bids. The town staff, including Town Manager Bill Kohbarger, reviewed the bids and visited examples of each company's current work at various Web sites.

Three finalists were selected for review by the town board members; however, the board voted to slow down the process until they had time to review the criteria for the project and judge for themselves more than the three recommended firms.

Board member Mike Darby said the staff, "did a wonderful job of getting the information together" but questioned the criteria for the selections.

"Nevada is one of the hardest hit states for unemployment and none of the three finalists are in this state. I would like the criteria be at least a company local to the state, if not to the town.

"I know one of the criteria was that the firm had to have previous government experience. I'm wondering if that may have driven up the price because the firm would have to be a government contractor." Darby suggested the town contact the Nugget and Saddle West and see who does their sites as theirs are updated with weekly and daily specials. He also suggested looking to Great Basin College to find someone up to the task. "I think maybe we should table it and come up with other possibilities."

Vice Chairman Bill Dolan said there were some companies from Pahrump included in the 20 firms on the list, although they did not make the final cut. He indicated the ccmpanies selected all have government experience.

No locations were given for the three companies, which varied widely in set and maintenance fees. American Eagle charged $16,000 for site setup, $11,052 for yearly maintenance plus $75 an hour. Tower Innovations estimated $26,800 for set up with an annual maintenance fee of $2,400. Vision Internet bid $39,595 for site setup and $6,000 for yearly maintenance.

"Tower Innovations was actually very low on the scale of items and Vision Internet, I found to be the most viable." He said the $39,600 for building the site could wind up being considerably less because most of the town's Web site is there.

"Our site just needs fine tuning," said Dolan. "The yearly annual fee is right at what we were going to be paying the last local person. I think we need to have somebody with government experience that can keep our records up there and keep them up to date." He also said he wanted business license renewals paid online and the ability to upload video of meetings, "for people who cannot make the meetings to view without having to get copies of the minutes and read it." Dolan said he wanted move forward with Vision Internet.

Board member Vicky Parker said she looked through all three of the finalists and came to some of the same conclusions Dolan did. However, Tower Innovations was her first choice. "They are my first choice simply because Vision Internet is more expensive. Do we need a nice, adequate, eye catching Web site or do we need an award winning one?"

"That's something the town board has to choose," she said. "The other thing I want to look at is the information I got this afternoon on the three companies that applied from Pahrump. One might possibly be viable. I would like to postpone this until the next meeting so that I have time to look at that local one to see if they belong in the final four or not."

Parker said while municipal experience may be important, she agreed with Darby that it shouldn't be a game stopper. The board voted to postpone the Web site decision until the Nov. 10 meeting.

During public comment on the Web site, Paula Elefante wanted the company selected to have the capability of having live feeds from town meetings.

Donna Cox represented the views of most of the residents in attendance when she said, "I really want to see one of the groups from Pahrump get this. I think that's even more important than the cost."