New Municipal Website Launching January 28

By John Voket

Regular visitors to Newtown’s municipal website — newtown-ct.gov — should be prepared for a whole new experience. A team of volunteers and staff led by First Selectman Pat Llodra and Town Clerk Debbie Aurelia plan to launch a redesigned web presence for Newtown Friday, January 28.

While accommodating the necessary features inherent in the community’s “old” website, the new web presence boasts a portal to on-demand streaming video of select local meetings, the ability for qualified local nongovernmental agencies to link through an outside site to provide activity information, and a section devoted to frequently asked questions with answers provided by Mrs Llodra.

One of the final meetings to address some fine tuning issues with the site included input from volunteer Carla Kron, Economic Development Commissioner Wes Thompson, and Terry Laslo, a local web designer who is not affiliated with the municipal vendor for the service.

Ms Laslo filed her comments via e-mail to the group while she was home recovering from the flu.

As the volunteers, first selectman and town clerk sat in one of the small meeting rooms at the municipal center, they meticulously poured through page after page of content making suggestions about overall appeal and some fine points.

One of the ideas posed by Ms Laslo was to “open links to documents like the town Charter in a new window for visitors,” so they could still navigate the site without having to constantly close and reopen the desired documents sought for review.

Other points of fine tuning suggested included posting a caption under Mrs Llodra’s photo identifying her by name, with her title as the town’s chief elected executive.

One of the first and foremost differences visitors will notice is an aesthetic design overhaul, couching the site pages’ entire body of content in a seasonally adjusted image from some well-known reference point in the community.

The current working home page of the test site uses an autumn image of the town looking northward from Castle Hill. Then, a smaller window fires up a rotating slideshow of images featuring either landmarks or activities like the Labor Day Parade.

Navigation buttons across the top of the home page offer specific links to subpages catering to residents, businesses, and visitors, along with a button leading to all web-based forms such as permit applications, and a button linking to an alphabetical listing of all departments available throughout the site.

Residents will be invited to peruse the Charter, lists of elected and appointed officials, the town budget, code, and the calendar of town meetings in grid format.

The home page will also have each day’s scheduled municipal activities right up front for quick reference, Ms Aurelia said.

Much of the content formerly available on the “old” site will still be accessible and familiar, once visitors get through familiarizing themselves with the new layout and design.

 “I believe this site will be a great resource for residents, as well as anyone considering a visit or relocating to live or open a business here,” Ms Aurelia said, adding that the newly launched site will be a work in progress for some time as the vendor/designer and the town refine and iron out any issues.

Mrs Llodra said she was most pleased with the new design.

“I’m really most excited about being able to archive up to 1,800 hours of local meetings, and we’ll be starting that right away with all of the current budget deliberations,” Mrs Llodra said. “We’re also happy to provide access for social and civic organizations to link directly to a community calendar. It’s something a lot of groups have been asking for.”