***
(Original story 12/16/2015) Jeremy Pelzer from Cleveland.com pointed the world today toward eastcleveland.org. That's the website for the city of East Cleveland, a usual governmental online outpost with contact info for different departments and updates from the city, such as they are. Etc. Etc.
Well, we should say it was the website for East Cleveland. Right now there's a generic layout featuring some crafty stuff and some DIY gift ideas and nothing about Mayor Gary Norton. What gives?
Pelzer, curious about how a man so attached to his phone like Gary Norton couldn't have alerted someone to the issue, went to the mayor to see just what was going on. The answer: Mayor Norton didn't even know, or didn't want to admit, that there was a problem with the website. (East Cleveland, if you're new to the game, has long been in a financial quagmire that results in even the most basic of services going unpaid, including the city's cell phone account with Sprint last year.) But anyway, we digress. Back to the site issue:
When asked about the website Wednesday morning, Mayor Gary Norton said, "That's news to me." After checking, Norton said the website was down for "retooling" and should be back up within a few days.
Norton said he wasn't sure how long the site has been down.
Web hosting costs are annoying but generally reasonable. That East Cleveland (probably) didn't pay isn't surprising — the city and its leaders are jokes. And you could argue that the placeholder DIY site plastered at the url by the web hosting company is actually more useful than anything Norton or the city could tell its residents.
The internet wayback archive machine shows EC's website has been down since at least Nov. 25, so this isn't a recent issue. But if it's really a retooling, as the mayor claims, we look forward to its bright and shiny update any day now, hopefully featuring listicles on the top ten reasons why Norton is the best mayor in Northeast Ohio, or something.
