Furthermore, in September, the Connecticut Policy and Economic Council ranked Newington’s Web site in the top 10 percent in its study of municipal Web sites throughout the state. The town came in 14th out of 159 municipalities. "I think what we see, as far as at the municipal government and federal government level, is a lot of organizations have content management Web sites, which allow you to set the structure of the entire site, the look, the feel and then allow individuals within department levels to publish and add content," said Paul Boutot, Newington’s director of information technology. "It makes for a more efficient Web site and a more active Web site. You alleviate the dependency upon an Information Technology individual or one webmaster that may be serving many people throughout the organization."
The Newington Web site uses a software program called First Class to manage and change content. All anyone from any department has to do to post something is open up First Class and write what they want to add or change. That information will then get updated almost instantaneously on the appropriate Web page.
"The interface is very intuitive," Boutot said. "We put a small client application on the users’ desktops, and they have the ability to go from current documents they’re working on, Microsoft Office, Excel, they can basically just cut, paste and drop it onto the Web page."
Open up the Newington home page, and right near the top, you’ll see links to general information, town departments, meetings and board and committee pages. On the right-hand side is a posting of the most recent information concerning the town such as the town manager’s monthly report, an announcement about an upcoming drive to collect goods for soldiers stationed overseas, which is taking place Friday and one about an upcoming flu clinic on Dec. 1.
Click on the Health Department page, for example, and there’s a link to information about diabetes, since November is national diabetes month.
"Our Web presence is an extension of a movement that began in 1994 with our new phone system to expand our communication capabilities," said Roy Zartarian, Newington’s information systems specialist. "What we’re hoping for is not only using the Web site for getting information out but getting things back in. We have some ‘contact us’ pages for general comments about the town. Comments about the Web pages go to the webmaster and get forwarded appropriately."
The Web site also has a community calendar where people can check out what events are going on in town. This is open to the community at-large, so any resident, social or civic organization could potentially have something in that calendar. A separate calendar with upcoming meetings and their agendas is also available online.
During October, the community calendar was viewed 10 times a day, according to Zartarian.
"We’re trying to market the community, bring in residents and business," Boutot said. "We’re competing against other communities. Today’s generation would rather not drive to Town Hall. There’s a strong movement toward e-government, paying bills and taxes online. We’re researching that now."
Eventually, the town hopes to have program registration online so that people can register and even pay for various programs over the web. Also, polling questions about various issues, happenings and other information concerning the town could soon be posted online
The town’s Web site is www.ci.newington.ct.us.
Autor: Daniel Remin
Quelle: New Britain Herald, 24.11.2004
