Saratoga News
News
City's website gets a new look, and becomes more user-friendly
By Shannon Burkey
The city of Saratoga's website is receiving a new look, with new features that will make it more user-friendly and technologically up-to-date.
"We've had the old website since the beginning of time. It's a first-generation website with quirky features," Mayor Norman Kline said.
Realizing the need for an updated website, the city council budgeted $30,000 last year to get the project under way. Once the money was approved, the city began looking at the websites of other cities to see if any of those could work for Saratoga. Palo Alto had a website that fit the needs of Saratoga on presentation and function, according to city IT analyst Ben Cheng.
With the permission and assistance of Palo Alto, Saratoga decided to use that city's website as a template. The new site will replace the one that has been online since 1998--which in computer time is ancient.
By working with Palo Alto on the new site, the city will be able to build a new site and stay within its budget. A new website, such as the one Saratoga wants, can typically cost up to $100,000.
"To do this right takes expertise and money, so we made the decision to go outside and see if we can use outside sources," Kline said. "By basically leveraging Palo Alto's technology, we are getting off cheap."
Unlike the old website, which was maintained by volunteers and was hard for city staff to update, the new site will be maintained by the city's IT staff and will offer new features that will benefit both users and staff.
"The new website will be easier from a user perspective, and it will be easier for staff to update the content," Cheng said. "It just makes it more dynamic."
With the new site, users will be able to access a new search engine to find information on city issues that they are concerned with and access staff reports and plans.
Another new feature will be streaming video of city council meetings. While the old website offered a capability to view the meetings live, the new site will also archive all videos along with the agenda minutes. Users will be able to skip through specific agenda items or type in a specific subject, and the video with that agenda item will come up.
"Basically, if you type in 'Mickey Mouse and Norman Kline,' the part of the meeting where I talked about Mickey Mouse will come up," said Kline.
In order to ensure the new streaming video functions as smoothly as possible, the city will contract that portion of the website out to Granicus Inc., a San Francisco-based company that works with local governments to create, manage and distribute streaming media. Users will link to the video on the city's website, but it will be hosted through the Granicus server.
"Their server can handle the traffic better because they have a bigger broadband than we do. It would just lag our systems," Cheng said.
Having a better-functioning and easier to use website for residents is a big step up in being able to inform Saratogans about their city. Since budget cuts required the city to scale back on the newsletter it sends out to residents, Kline said that new website will be a good new resource for city news.
"Being able to get information to voters and residents is very important," Kline said. "Our new website can now be used functionally."
