Your department web site

[el Guapo]

Tell me about your planning/zoning/code enforcement department web site? Did you make it? Does it get traffic? Does your department actually use it to communicate with the public or is it there because you had to have one for other reasons? Do you keep it current? Do you tell people about it? What should be on it? Do you dare put the regulations out where the great masses can read them for themselves?

I almost made this a poll, then I thought we would get better answers without one.

If you are very proud of your department web site, post a link!

 

[NHPlanner]

http://www.londonderry.org/page.asp?Page_Id=86

Lots of the engineering firms use the site to get the latest copies of the regs and minutes of our Planning Board meetings.

I handle the updating/design for this portion of the Town's site, and I honestly have no idea what our daily traffic looks like.

 

[Budgie]

Nice Site

Here's our Department Website

www.co.saline.ks.us/planning

Using Municipal Code Corporation's on-line service is really nice. They update the code annually as we send amendments. Our is a constant work in progress and we have lots of additions in the works for February 2002.

 

[Chet]

www.ci.muskego.wi.us/planning

But be forewarned -- this site isn't optimized for Netscape Navigator, and our IS Department isn't trying to fix the glitch...

We post all agendas with staff reports. In our organization, each department is responsible for their own web content, so the level (and quality) varies across the different pages of our site. It gets alot of hits from engineering firms, surveyors, etc. As for "the public", it does get a reasonable amount of traffic.

We are planning to go on-line with ESRI's ArcMap in the near future....

 

[Downtown]

http://www.colonie.org/pedd/index.html

We're getting to the point where we're going to start accepting online applications for projects (well, eventually). And our town code is kept updated on the home page, many people seem to access that.

 

[Cardinal]

Well, it isn't the greatest. And later this month it will be greatly improved. Here it is: www.cityofwhitewater.com. The new site premiering this month will have a number of planning documents available - the recent ones that are in digital format. It will also have data - just about anything you might want to know about the city - all of it in an easily-replacable .pdf format. It is really an economic development web site, not planning. The site has been getting decent traffic, and is especially helpful to us in giving people a place to immediately go for information, rather than have us send it through the mail.

 

[el Guapo]

Not quite ready for prime time!

Here is mine. It is still a beta release. We plan to announce it in a month. All of those hits are me working up the site. I work on it when time allows.

www.mo-kan.org

 

[Chet]

Oh my...

Imagine my chagrine when I opened Mike Stumpf's "introduction" page, only to see the public fountain that served as the after-bar swimming hole from my collegiate days...

Ah memories....

 

[Dan]

I'm not just the Plannng Webmaster, but rather the town Webmaster. Here it is, missing pieces and all.

Wanna' see just how small the place is? It's a nice break from a city of 300,000, even though the WEEKLY population growth rate is 1%.

 

[Downtown]

Dan - enjoyed the photo of your "Planning Assistant"!

 

[giff57]

I'm not just the Plannng Webmaster, but rather the town Webmaster.

Yeah, me too Dan. Our new mayor has told me he has heard from some volunteers with degrees in web design to work on it. HA! He thought I would be offended.... One less thing for me to worry about. I will still be the lead on it, I just won't have to do the building.

 

[Dan]

Yeah, me too Dan. Our new mayor has told me he has heard from some volunteers with degrees in web design to work on it. HA!

You can get a degree in Web design?

Personally, I'm glad I control the Web site. We have a very small professional staff, and to be honest I'm afraid of that others would follow the GeoCities school of design if they got their hands on any part of it -- i.e. bad animated stock graphics, goofy backgrounds, blinking and scrolling text, and so on.

The Web site from the town next door ... it scares me.

 

[NHPlanner]

The Web site from the town next door ... it scares me.

I haven't seen one that bad in ages!

Most of the Municipal sites in NH are pretty good...but the really small towns are a mixed bag. We were fortunate to get a local company to host the site and redesign the basics of the site for us. Now...if I could just get other departments to update....

www.londonderry.org

 

[Cardinal]

So, bad is what you want? Check out one of my favorite sites...
www.brodnet.com/cityofbrodhead/

 

[el Guapo]

I can beat that!

How is this for an atrocious web site? I don’t know if they could make it worse if they tried.

www.fordcounty.net

 

[giff57]

You can get a degree in Web design?

You can from MUM. http://www.mum.edu/welcome_ie.html

Personally, I'm glad I control the Web site.

I was assured that I would still have control over what goes up. After seeing those examples, I am glad of that. I just hate those mouse tails.

 

[Dan]

So, bad is what you want? Check out one of my favorite sites...
www.brodnet.com/cityofbrodhead/

Oh ... my ... God. Everything is animated. I'll admit that my town Web site isn't the cutting edge of Web design -- it's intended to be relatively tasteful, easy to navigate, and easy to maintain -- but that Brodhead page is BAAAAD.

From the front page ... "When you've completed you're tour of our City, why not check out Green County." You see it if you can tolerate the plinking "You Are My Sunshine" MIDI file, and actually made it that far.

 

[giff57]

Here is another busy one.

http://www.chariton.org/

 

[jmf]

Here are some good and bad ones from North of the border - east coast.

www.colchester-county.ns.ca/indexie.html
www.town.truro.ns.ca/
www.pcdpc.com/

www.victoriacounty.com/
www.chesterbound.com/municpal.html (notice municipal is spelled wrong!)
http://www.townofpictou.com/

I actually started this one, which is for a planning commission rather than a town, the design is still the same but the maps and some other information have gotten a lot better since I left.

www.rcbplan.ns.ca

 

[Dan]

My eyes! They burn!

http://64.77.42.117/staff



































Seriously, it's a page I made about four years ago, something demonstrating an agglomeration of the worst Web sites I've seen. However, considering some of the sites linked above, I don't think I went far enough.

 

[el Guapo]

I always wondered...

what an acid trip would look like . Thanks for saving me the $10.00 (Not that I know what the current street price of acid is!) and exposure to bad Greatful Dead music.

 

[Mary]

definately blinding

Dan fear not. I feel that if you just add a strange annoying mouse tail, have a couple of animals tromping around the page, and maybe a little more moving text and your example should be right up to speed with the other bad pages.

 

[el Guapo]

Does this say welcome to the department web site or what!

!

 

[giff57]

Re: I always wondered...

exposure to bad Greatful Dead music.

Hey now, there is no such thing as bad Grateful Dead music.

he he

 

[Downtown]

What? Exotic Dancing and Pole Skills are not on your secretary's civil service exam?

 

[el Guapo]

A underutilized skill set

"POLL SKILLS" - I'm Dying! I'm Hemorrhaging!

You can't say much more with two words in the English language than that my friend. I can't get the rich, aromatic and animated image out of my head...I'm gonna need to see a picture of Hillary to wipe this mental construct from my consciousness.

 

[Downtown]

Here's a special site, just for you, El Guapo:

www.slaphillary.com

 

[giff57]

Drivin that train .... High on cocaine.....Casey Jones ya better watch your speed.......

I love mp3s.....

 

[Tin-Chee Wu]

Here is our departmental website. I am not directly responsible for it, although I have contributed bits and pieces from time to time. We use it primarily to post agendas and minutes of planning committee meetings. Therefore it is always kept current at least once every two weeks. We also use it to provide information on various special projects and programs. We do not know the level of use although we do get e-mail enquiries through the site from time to time.



www.planningsudbury.com

 

[Chet]

I resisted long enough...

...this is what happens when web publishing is decentralized. Each department secretary becomes the "webmaster of their domain"


http://www.ci.muskego.wi.us/parkrecreation/index.htm

I'm sure she is proud of the blinking lights....

 

[Dan]

Being the acting Town Webmaster has its occasional delights. For instance, easter eggs for 404s and other things.

 

[Wannaplan?]

Anyone here from Normal, Illinois?

How about Hell, Michigan?

 

[michaelskis]

I like our site....

Portage

 

[jestes]

We have recently revamped our website, I am pretty proud of it:

Forrest County

Compare that to our nearest neighbor:

Lamar County
OUCH

Now, our latest venture:

Multi Purpose Center

 

[ludes98]

I like our site....

Portage

I You have an error there. http://www.portagemi.com/Default.asp?bhcp=1

Dan I love the doughnuts at the bottom of the police page!!!

 

[DecaturHawk]

When it comes to ugly, I'll put our website up against anybody's:

www.ci.decatur.il.us

 

[Doitnow]

Since I'm just a consultant to the local government and the local planning authority, I cant say that I dont have a department really.I have no role in the development of the websites but I do supply them with information and updates and project details whenever I am associated with them.

The Local Municipal Authority (I have specific interactions with them).
The Local Planning and Development Authority ( Regular General Interactions and updates)

P.S
As per Indian standards these sites are pretty useful to the public. Compared to the other government sites these are definitely rated as 'Better'.
I am trying my best to add more and more maps to the government sites. I hope to be successful soon.