A. The purpose of this chapter and the policies established herein is to provide guidelines for the operation, maintenance, and utilization of the Village website as a form of "governmental speech", and to describe its purpose and use by the Village, as well as to implement policies and regulations relative to the establishment and use by the Village of Lake Barrington of various social media sites on behalf of the Village:
1. Village Website: The Village website is a government website, and the Village is not required to provide on its website links to other websites that are not government-sponsored. The Village website is committed to providing website links that assist Village residents, local businesses, and the public to learn more about programs and services offered by the Village and other related units of local government, and community offerings and events sponsored by qualifying charitable, civic, or governmental organizations which seek to strengthen and enhance certain aspects of the community in accordance with the mission statement (hereinafter referred to as "qualifying organizations").
2. Social Media Sites:
a. The Village has an overriding interest and expectation in determining what is "spoken" on behalf of the Village on its official Village social media sites. In that regard, the Village has also established this policy in order to implement policies and regulations relative to the establishment and use by the Village of Lake Barrington of various social media sites on behalf of the Village, including but not limited to "Facebook" and "Twitter", as a means of conveying information from the Village and/or about the Village to Village residents and other interested members of the general public utilizing expanding methods of communication.
b. For purposes of this policy, the term "social media" shall be understood to be content created by individuals, using accessible, expandable, and upgradable publishing technologies, through and on the internet. Examples of current social media tools include Facebook, web blogs, Viddler, RSS, YouTube, Twitter, FourSquare, Vine and Flickr. For purpose of this policy, the term "comments" includes information, articles, pictures, videos or any other form of communicative content posted on a Village social media site.
3. Objectives:
a. To serve as an on-going source of Village information in the form of governmental speech for the residents and businesses of Lake Barrington and to enhance community understanding of the services provided by the Village.
b. To increase public knowledge of the functions and responsibilities of Village government, and of the respective functions of its Village Board (the terms "Village Board" and "Corporate Authorities" shall mean and refer to the President and Board of Trustees of the Village), its elected and appointed officials, operating departments, and advisory boards, commissions and committees.
c. To serve as an emergency information center, providing notice and updated information on local emergency situations related to such matters as weather, hazardous spills, water system status, crime, etc.
d. To strengthen community identity and involvement by announcing and/or providing links to audio and/or video coverage of Village meetings, local events and activities and highlighting local businesses and organizations.
e. To supplement the ongoing communications between the Village and its residents.
f. To provide information of general interest to Village residents, resident businesses, and the general public relative to Village programs, services, activities, initiatives or areas of responsibility.
g. To act as a resource to the public for useful information about the community as well as directional information (maps, etc.), directories of services provided, notices of all public meetings and programs, etc. (Ord. 2017-O-16, 9-5-2017)