The Innsbrook Board of Trustees approved agreements with NOC Technology and Civic Plus for IT and codification services at their Nov. 12 meeting. 

Village officials say the two contracts will help modernize the village and allow citizens to more readily access village documents, which has been a point of contention at recent meetings. 

Michael Caton, who spoke during the meeting’s public comment portion, had previously raised issues with accessing village documents prior to meetings. 

He felt that copies of proposed ordinances should be made available at meetings and felt that the village was violating the law by not making them readily available. 

Village Attorney Chris Graville countered stating proposed ordinances are available for inspection upon request in accordance with the law and part of the agreement with NOC was going to be making those documents available online. 

Graville continued, saying with the village’s limited manpower it is difficult to produce documents like those mentioned by Caton in a timely manner, but the IT contract with NOC should rectify some of those issues. 

“That is one of the things that’s on there, we’ve talked about getting them (ordinances) on the website before the meeting, doing hyperlink agendas, we’ve looked at some cities on what is the most effective way to do that and what capabilities we have to do that now,” said Graville. 

NOC Technology is an IT firm in Washington and also manages IT services for Wright City. 

Cynthia Freeman, a contractor hired by the village to aid with administration, said the cost of the IT services was “piecemeal,” and an exact cost was not available. 

Trustee Donna West also requested that Graville explain in more detail the agreement for codification services with Civic Plus. 

Graville outlined that the codification of the village’s ordinances was a longtime project that he and other village officials had been involved with to make the village’s laws and codes easier to understand. 

“We’ve always had a very, very complex and detailed zoning code, there’s been amendments from time to time, it’s created gaps,” said Graville. 

He went on to say that as the village ordinances sit now, to research what is allowed, an individual would have to start at the first ordinance and work through the list to make sure whatever they wanted to build or whatever businesses they wanted to operate would not be impacted by any of those ordinances. 

Once those ordinances are codified, citizens would be able to search the village code like a database to find relevant ordinances and laws. 

“It’s a growing pain process, it’s most painful and most expensive when you first do it. I was part of the city of Marthasville when we did it, it was very painful, but it bears very good fruit,” said Graville. “Because once it’s codified, it will go online, on the website. They’ll host it and it’ll be available for everybody.”

Freeman said that agreement came with a base project cost of $9,500 with potential for additional increases depending on the village’s needs.