County supervisors want separation for social media pages

On Tuesday, the Henry County Board of Supervisors approved a change in the county's employee handbook regarding social media pages.

The new policy states that 'any department that chooses to establish county-related social media websites shall coordinate the creation with Solutions Inc. Web Team.”

Solutions Inc. is the outside information technology vendor for Henry County.

'Our biggest concern was having a Facebook account attached to a personal account,” Supervisor Greg Moeller said. 'I think there was some misinterpretation when people saw the account and saw your name.”

County Recorder Mindy Fitzgibbon said she was under the impression that the only way to create a Facebook page was through a personal Facebook account.

'When Max (Elg of Solutions Inc.) and I made him administrator of the recorder's (page), I felt like I was grilled about it being created under my personal page,” Fitzgibbon said. 'He said there's no other way to do it. I had to make him the administrator.”

The county's IT coordinator Derek Wellington said that was not the case, and that Solutions Inc. is able to set up pages without having them attached to personal pages.

'There is a way to do it that way,” Wellington said. 'That's how Ana's (Lair, county treasurer) is now. It doesn't tie it into a personal account.”

County Engineer Jake Hotchkiss said that his department does not currently have a Facebook page.

He said that before setting one up, he would like to know if there was a way to control comments on the page.

'We don't want it to turn into a rant page,” Hotchkiss said.