The much-anticipated, new and improved Oak Bluffs town website was quietly launched into cyberspace on Monday afternoon. Although there was no fanfare, town officials see it as a major improvement in the town’s infrastructure.
“It’s a really critical improvement,” town administrator Robert Whritenour told The Times on Wednesday. “It gives us the opportunity to fundamentally change the way we interact with people. This was a top priority in the selectmen’s strategic plan. It took a little longer than we thought it would, but it’s a tangible improvement in our outreach efforts.”
”We’re entering into a new relationship between the taxpayers and the town,” Travis Larsen, information technology director, told The Times. “One of the biggest improvements is the ‘Notify Me’ function. Anyone who wants to be informed on meetings or announcements from any department or committee can sign up to be notified by email or by text message.”
Mr. Larsen said the website is set up so specific meeting minutes, agendas, and video can be obtained by one click of the mouse.
Mr. Larsen expects the website to be the town’s designated location for public meeting notices within the next two months.
“The attorney general’s office recently changed the law to allow websites to provide legal notification.” he said. “The hallway in town hall doesn’t present all the information when the town hall is closed.”
Mr. Larsen said people who don’t have a computer or Internet access can use the computers at the library, which is just a few feet away from where meetings are currently posted in town hall.
Saving time, building trust
The website revamp will save the town and townspeople time and money, Mr. Larsen said. “When people have information available, it frees up town hall resources. When someone doesn’t have to leave their home to get answers or to communicate with town officials, it saves the taxpayer 10 minutes and it saves the department 10 minutes, and that adds up.”
Looking at the big picture, Mr. Larsen said the website, if maintained and updated properly, can improve the relationship between voters and town hall. “If people can easily find information, like meeting minutes or agendas, or if they’re notified by email or by text and get information before they even request it, it builds trust,” he said.
The website is designed so department heads can easily update their own pages. “It’s a decentralized model,” he said. “Department heads will be responsible for updating their own webpages. Some have embraced it more than others.”
For those less facile with technology, the fifth and sixth training sessions will be held this week. Mr. Larsen said the two onsite training sessions were lightly attended, but remote sessions via teleconference are ongoing.
Mr. Larsen said building inspector Mark Barbadoro has been particularly active on the new website. “Mark designed his whole site, drag and drop,” he said. “He’s made it a priority to get an integrated licensing and permitting system that ties into the website.”
“I’m really excited about it,” Mr. Barbadoro told The Times on Wednesday. “There’s an online contact form for inspections. Just enter your first name, last name, and address, and select your inspection. If it’s for wiring, the email automatically goes to the wiring inspector. I’ve got links to the building code, building code case law, sheet metal code, architectural access code, and fire code. There’s a span calculator; you can check for a contractor’s license; you can download applications for permits.” Mr. Barbadoro said the dark green links on the page are dead links that he’s still working on. “This is just the beginning of what we’re going to do,” he said. “Eventually I’m going to be doing simple permits — plumbing, gas and electric, sheet metal, roofs, windows — all online. After that I’m hoping to have the credit card process linked in, so it’s one-stop shopping. They’ll never have to set foot in town hall.”
Mr. Barbadoro, like Mr. Whritenour and Mr. Larsen, said he thought the biggest improvement is the notification system. “Anybody with an interest in a particular board or particular event, getting an email automatically sent to you is pretty huge,” he said.
The new website was designed over the past nine months by CivicPlus, a consulting firm based in Manhattan, Kan. “They specialize in government systems, and they really brought a lot to the table,” Mr. Larsen said.
At the 2015 special town meeting, voters endorsed a $23,000 transfer from free cash to upgrade the Oak Bluffs town website. Mr. Larsen said CivicPlus has been paid about two-thirds of that amount to date.
As with any newly launched website, there are still bugs to be worked out.
Mr. Larsen said that if people want to report a bug in the system, or if they have suggestions, they can email him directly at tlarsen@oakbluffsma.gov. Questions or problems about a particular department’s webpage should go directly to that department’s page. Mr. Larsen said that process already worked in the first day of operation.
“There was a problem on the tax collector’s page where the Bill Pay wasn’t linked correctly,” he said. “They went on the contact form, emailed the tax collector, she emailed me, and I fixed it.”
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