"We wanted to make city government more accessible to all residents," said Chris Eppley, city manager for Keizer. "What we currently have up is just a beginning. We will continue to improve the site as we flush out each department."
Eppley said the city hopes to have the new site developed fully by next year. The city's first Website was taken offline last December and replaced with a second site that was hard for users to locate and fraught with broken links, according to Bill Hopkins, the city's information systems technician.
"Time was the biggest challenge" in fixing the system, Hopkins said.
Last April, the city decided to hire a professionalWeb designer to create and implement a new site to replace the crippled site. After a formal bidding process, local consultant Mike Head and his partner Ryan Richison, co-owners of Dogboy Web Solutions, were awarded the task.
After three years of creating Websites together, Head, an elementary teacher by day, and Richison, a programmer, put their computer skills together and formed the Keizer-based company that reaches out to small businesses - and now cities - with innovative Web solutions. For a little under $3,000, the two owners gave the city a site with all the bells and whistles needed to make it user-friendly.
"The city wanted something really simple, and we think we gave that to them," Head said.
Several city sites, including Salem, Eugene and Corsicana, Texas, were reviewed during the creating process, with the best ideas tweaked to fit Keizer's needs, Head said.
The new site is e-government friendly, providing press releases, employment opportunities, committee reports and other city-related information. Visitors will be able to access information in both English and Spanish, when all translating has been completed.
The site's purple-white-and-blue home page, with less than a 30-second load, hosts links to city government and departments as well as the community and other related links. Local weather, the latest news and links to area attractions, bus schedules, city calendar, local demographics and even Keizer's history can also be found.
To find out information not yet available online, Web users can contact the city directly from the site. No e-mail addresses for city staff are listed to prevent computer hackers from stealing messages or sending SPAM.
"This site does so much more than the old site," said Debbie Lockhart, the city's recording secretary.
Lockhart will keep the new site updated for the city, entering data, photos and other information as the site evolves.
When completely finished, the new site will provide links to paying city water bills and municipal ticket fines online, accessing city applications, viewing city council and other city committee meetings, participating in polls and surveys, communicating with city offices and personnel, and signing up for press releases and/or information newsgroups from city committees and offices.
"By next year, anything related to any public business will be on the site, accessible to the public right from their desktop," Eppley said. "We're opening up government to all citizens electronically."
Autor: Mary Owen
Quelle: Keizertimes, 17.09.2004
