“Obviously we’re a local government, so I don’t think they’re making a huge statement — that part is a little weird to me,” said Ami Van Antwerp, communications coordinator and Web content manager for East Lansing.

Hacking the Web site seems like it has become a trend, she said.

“In the six or seven years I’ve worked here, it’s never happened, (but) now it’s happening in a high frequency in the last six weeks or so,” she said.

The Web site has been hacked three or four times in the past month, Van Antwerp said.

“It concerns me in the sense that the real information should be available, and if (the city) needs to tighten their security a little bit, they probably should,” said Ann Nichols, President of the Oakwood Historical Neighborhood Association. “I’m not threatened by the message per se, I just think they should make it harder (to break into).”

The city is planning to update and redesign the Web site, although the reason for this is not because of the nuisance of the hackings, said Ted Staton, city manager for East Lansing.

“What we’re talking about is a new way to more readily communicate, with people, electronic information about the city,” he said.

The city would also like to transact more business over the Web site, which is another fundamental motivation for updating, Staton said.

However, a lot of the hacking problems are attributed to the old technology the Web site is using, which the updates will hopefully eliminate, Van Antwerp said.

“We’re using technology from 2001, and technology has advanced a lot,” she said. “We’re doing a completely different system.”

The biggest change is going to be a reconstruction to make the site more user friendly by increasing the ease of navigation and possibly adding features such as photo galleries and more blog space, Van Antwerp said.

The process of updating the site takes a while, and changes will probably be presented to the East Lansing City Council in the late fall or early winter, Staton said.