EATON — The City of Eaton released a new and improved municipal website on Friday, Dec. 17.
The website remains located at www.cityofeaton.org, and is a work in progress, according to City of Eaton Community Development Specialist Leslie Collins, who introduced the site during Eaton City Council’s last meeting of the year on Monday, Dec. 20.
The new website is a big improvement over the former outdated site, according to Collins.
“Not only is the new website easy to maintain and edit for city staff, but it also provides an ease of navigation the old website did not provide. It is our hope it provides our residents and visitors with self-service capability which cuts down on their need to call the City Building for an answer or form they can easily find online,” Collins said. “From finding an application or zoning information, to researching our codified ordinances or paying their water bills, people can easily find their way to what they need.”
Content from the old website, as well as content from eatonpolice.org, eatonfireoh.org and the city’s separate Mound Hill Cemetery website was migrated over into the new site, according to Collins.
Highlights of the new site include a fresh modern look, a module dedicated to the city’s news and announcements, an interactive calendar where visitors will be able to find upcoming meetings and events, as well as links to agendas and other documents which are related to them, and more.
A user-friendly key links menu along the bottom of the home page provides easy access to various areas of the site, including directories of meeting agendas and minutes, forms and permit applications, and the calendar. “The Eaton Police and Fire & EMS Divisions’ websites have also been rolled into the new City of Eaton site, and links to those are available there as well,” Collins said.
Another important easy-to-access key link is one which allows residents to pay and view their water utility bills online.
“We also have the ability to place site-wide, or division-centric alerts up, which visitors to the new website may have noticed we used to announce our office closures for the holidays, for example,” Collins noted.
For the website project, the City of Eaton contracted with Municode (Municipal Code Corporation,) the largest codifier of legal documents for local governments in the United States and a nationally recognized provider of agenda and meeting management and municipal website design solutions. The company creates websites designed specifically for local government. Municode was recently acquired by CivicPlus, the civic experience technology developer currently working with the Preble County Commissioners for completion of a new county website.
