Other Notables
Request Tracker allows the Community to report concerns such as potholes, weed control issues, street light outages, etc. In addition, the tool allows the ability to track the work from start to finish via email notifications.
Improved Menus with the addition of our
How Do I and
Services sections. Website visitors no longer need “inside” knowledge of City Hall organization. Items are grouped in categories such as
Apply,
Contact,
Find,
Pay,
Sign Up,
Submit, and
View. In addition, our
Services section highlights specific duties performed by our many departments.
Our
Residents section was incorporated from our former site and continues to point citizens to important information such as
Garbage and Recycling,
Residential Community Standards, and
Online Payments.
Our
Construction Updates blog gives timely information on the many projects happening around the City and allows you to subscribe to the updates that matter to you.
Additional user-friendly functionalities such as drag-and-drop features will help streamline City Staff processes including workflow centers, bid postings, synchronized calendars, citizen request tracker, mass communications, and media integration.
The City invested approximately $100K in the new website which included redesign, content and data migration, on-site training, and a four-year hosting fee. Many of the high-resolution photos used throughout the site were taken by local photographer, Sarah Grace Photography. City employees also contributed to the photography.
“Kudos to Heidi Andrea, Blaine’s Web Coordinator, for the successful implementation of the City’s redesigned website using CivicPlus. The project took well over a year from inception to full launch and Heidi did a remarkable job coordinating all social media and other aspects involved in the upgrade,” states Finance Director, Joe Huss. “Special thanks to our IT staff for their assistance and all the employees who put in extra effort to implement the much-improved, fully integrated website,” adds Huss.
A mobile app will be added in the future. The smartphone app will allow citizens to submit concerns via their mobile devices, as well as receive alerts and push notifications.
History
In January 2016, the City of Blaine requested bids from qualified firms to design, configure, and implement a new and improved City website that would increase engagement with the public and optimize our communication.
The City entered into a contract with CivicPlus in May 2016. CivicPlus is a website company whose primary focus is designing website solutions for governmental agencies and cities such as Blaine. CivicPlus has more than 2,000 government clients with over 50,000 users and a staff of more than 200. CivicPlus clients have won over 370 state and national awards for website design and implementation.
“CivicPlus was founded on designing website solutions for government entities and cities like ours,” states Web Coordinator, Heidi Andrea. “They also redesigned the websites for the City of Coon Rapids and Anoka County, so we were confident in their ability to design and implement a website that would fit our customer’s and employee’s needs.”