What would you like to see in a Town website

[farmall806]

Hi:

If your Town was going to have it's own Town website, what would you like to see included in the website?

Thanks,

farmall806

[WNYresident]

Simple and clean..

Just the facts...

Easy navigation...

[farmall806]

Here is what I was thinking of in a town website:

1. Easy to navigate.

2. history of the town.

3. printable forms that people could fill out and either email back to the town or mail it back.

4. comprehensive plan on the site.

5. Map of the town.

6. list of town officials and contact numbers.

7. a list of all the departments in the town, who runs them, what they do, ect.

8. Tax and assessment data for properties in the town.

9. Pictures of important items and places in town.

10. calender of important dates and times of events in town.

11. News

12. Things to do in town

13. Listing of all the local businesses in town.

14. job openings and bid announcments.

15. the agendas and the minutes for the various departments in town.

farmall806

[Night Owl]

How about a "search this site" option that actually works.

The City of Buffalo's website has a search and no matter what you put in the search box it always says "sorry there were not matches to your search inquiry". The Amherst site is not much different, same with the Erie County Works one that will redirect you to unrelated topics.

Another suggestion is a site that is always updated.

I like #3 ... that is something which isn't seen on most websites. That would be a great niche to help promote the site.

[WNYresident]

A lot of stuff mention is common to all towns and cities. Each website should not be re-invented for each town. Give the taxpayer's town an easy to use town utilility.

All the towns basically have the same departments, just different people working in each department.

The look would reflect each town but the data/structure etc should be basically the same.

[Night Owl]

The look would reflect each town

Uniqueness & individualism towards the town, IE- what sets it apart from other places.

Maybe a tourist section too, like local shops, bed & breakfast, diners etc. Which could be added to #12 & 13.

[WNYresident]

Originally posted by farmall806

Here is what I was thinking of in a town website:

1. Easy to navigate.

Thats a given.

2. history of the town.

There are some good websites already on the net with history of the local towns and buffalo.

3. printable forms that people could fill out and either email back to the town or mail it back.

Easy to use PDF format. This way they print in a uniform manner and any taxpayer's printer. This would also allow a town to drop printed inventory of forms. They just print them when they need them. Use an easy update form section so there's as little labor needed each time a form changes.

4. comprehensive plan on the site.

Is this something already in print form? How often does it change?

5. Map of the town.


Something like this?
Sample Map (http://www.onlinebuffalo.com/html/buffalo_map.php)

You could get fancy and have mouse overs on various buildings with information. Or do you mean more of a overview of maps that the county sort of has now?

6. list of town officials and contact numbers.

One central spot for all the towns contact info

7. a list of all the departments in the town, who runs them, what they do, ect.

Like a Service directory?

8. Tax and assessment data for properties in the town.

Doesn't the county have this on file already?

9. Pictures of important items and places in town.

More for tourist? or more for the residents?

10. calender of important dates and times of events in town.

One central calender for all of WNY towns/cities sortable by towns/cities or types of events. Just invent one good one and don't re-invent a different calender structure for each town. Why spend money re-inventing something. Each town could pull it's own data for it's own website all pulling from one common database.

11. News

News as in? We have news outlets now. Who would update a towns news? Do you mean more of who won bids? WHo's getting promoted?

12. Things to do in town

As in? Events?

13. Listing of all the local businesses in town.

We have phonebooks on line sortable by town. WHy reinvent it again?

14. job openings and bid announcments.

All of them? Even the politicians try to fill with patronage? :)

15. the agendas and the minutes for the various departments in town.

Is that computerized now like in word format?

farmall806

[WNYresident]

Originally posted by Night Owl
The look would reflect each town

Uniqueness & individualism towards the town, IE- what sets it apart from other places.

Maybe a tourist section too, like local shops, bed & breakfast, diners etc. Which could be added to #12 & 13.


Uniqueness in look but the data is still basically the same.

[Night Owl]

farmall806,

Another something I thought of... select colors that are easy on the eyes. Aviod Yellow as a background- it is an irritable color.

Standard white with some color borders and/or banners.

Just my opinion from seeing so many sites online, I don't like flashy ads blinking, I find stuff like that more annoying and distracting, Plus, it slows things down.

[farmall806]

WNYresident:

2. History of the town. What I was thinking of is to have on the website the complete history of the town. the town already has it's history printed out in a book, so I was thinking of transferring the printed version to the town website.


4. Comprehensive plan: We have the 1994 plan in printed form. I would like to see that put on the website. The town was working on a new updated comprehensive plan, but the town board voted the updated plan down.

5. Map of the town: Something along the lines of what the towns of Clarence, town of Queensbury, and the town of Northumberland have. Street maps, hydrology maps, soil maps, ect.


7. Just what I was thinking of.

8. The assessment data would say what the tax rate is, assessment ratio, and what neighboring properties sold for within the past 5 years.

9. For both tourists and residents.

11. News: Anything of interest to the town. Would cover anything that the regular news outlets missed or did not cover at all.

12. Things to do in town: Whatever it may be at that particular point in time. Could be things to do in the winter, like snowmobiling, going to the racetrack in the Summer, Carnival in the Spring , ect.

13. To promote the Businesses in town and to bring more people in to town. This would hopefully get more people spending money in town instead of elswhere.

14. All job openings in municipal government

15. Only the Planning Board and maybe the ZBA is computerized. The rest of the departments all type up their minutes.

farmall806

[absolivious]

Two examples:

Tonawanda has a web site that is very easy for a new visitor to navigate.

The Amherst site, on the other hand, is not at all easy to navigate, unless you know where you are going; but it does have two features I really like (if you can find them):

The Map Machine (Tona has one too) and the complete Property assessment / tax lookup (by SBL or Street address).

Amherst used to have a very useful word searchable archive of the Town Board minutes that went back decades. Now you can only go back to 1994 - and you'd better know the date of the meeting you are seeking. :mad: I don't know why they did away with it.

Amherst site (http://www.amherst.ny.us/)
Tonawanda (http://www.tonawanda.ny.us)

[WNYresident]

Maybe they took it away because it was too efficient :) Can't have efficiency in government :)

[farmall806]

What does a web writer or a web assistant make per hour?

farmall806

[farmall806]

Here is another one. How about a geneaology section on the website listing all the people who were born or died in the town?

farmall806