Bond issue website domain “scandal”: Just the facts….
During this unfortunate season of “fact checking” I find it necessary to provide the facts and timelines concerning John Thompson’s slanderous claims from recent opinion columns in the Jefferson Herald.
The GCCSD School Bond Issue domain (gccsdbondissue.info) was first registered on July 14, 2015 for one year under my GoDaddy.com account in order to create a web page to provide general information to the public during the first school bond issue campaign. The gccsdbondissue.info domain name was redirected to a single web page on our existing district web hosting service. I updated this web page with general bond issue information, drawings, etc. as they were provided to me. Providing information to the public about the bond issue is a responsibility of the school district.
When the Pay It Forward committee decided to reuse the same website domain name (gccsdbondissue.info) during the second September 13, 2016 bond issue vote and update the content, I created a new free website at Wix.com and used the existing domain name to access this new website. I created a rough menu structure and some graphics on my own personal time from home during one weekend in February (Feb. 20-21 to be precise). I shared this with the committee at an evening meeting the next week and provided the username and password to them to maintain it. I did not attend any planning meetings of the Pay It Forward committee after this and did not maintain or update the committee website as Mr Thompson claims. This new website was not made public by the committee until July 2016.
On July 5th, 2016 many of the domains registered under my account on GoDaddy renewed automatically for another year of service. This includes nine various .org. .net, .us and .info Greene County school district domain names. One of those that renewed automatically and was charged to the account was the gccsdbondissue.info domain name. As soon as I got the renewal confirmation e-mail from GoDaddy and noticed this on the list of domains, I contacted the district Business Manager. The Pay It Forward committee treasurer reimbursed the school district for the $13.17 domain renewal fee on August 3rd. The GoDaddy bill was paid by the district at the board meeting on August 17th, a full 14 days AFTER the district received the fee payment from the Pay It Forward committee. (Note: Iowa Code Chapter 351 5.5(4) allows reimbursement to a governmental body for the actual cost of a public resource even after the expense has occurred.)
And finally, the domain name in question has been transferred from my GoDaddy account to the account of a member of the Pay It Forward committee. So I invite you to weigh the documented facts presented above vs. the bogus accusations formed and published as truth from an internet search gone wild.
Tim Buenz, director of technology, Greene County CSD
