City’s new website comes online Monday

Talk about it

On Monday, Jamestown’s new website goes online, providing residents with all kinds of information as well as links to other sites.

The site is www.jamestownnd.org. City Administrator Jeff Fuchs said the address is the same except it’s now “.org” rather than “.com.” But don’t worry. If you accidentally use “.com”, it should still take you to the new website.

“We were looking for an effective, efficient and user-friendly website,” Fuchs said. “We got a very efficient and user-friendly site at a very reasonable price.”

The site was designed by Josh Smagge, who is also the information-technology person at the Stutsman County Courthouse. As local government computer work is his job, Fuchs said, Smagge knew what was needed for the site. And City Hall departments supplied him with what he needed. Smagge did the design work on his own time for around $7,000.

“We started working on this the first part of August,” Fuchs said. “It’s actually taken longer than we’d hoped it would because city employees could only work on it as time allowed.”

After it goes online, trained city employees will do the updating. Because he works for the county and city, Smagge will be available to fix problems and offer input on the website.

“Our goal is to keep adding to this,” Fuchs said.

The homepage will include alerts such as snow emergencies, which ban parking on emergency routes, or what the snow removal plan is following a storm. Fuchs said if the site was up now, residents would see an alert reporting the plan for this weekend.

“The alert would be streaming across the page,” he said.

There’s a section for getting forms online, such as absentee ballots or permits, in three different areas.

“This will get expanded as time goes on,” Fuchs said.

Ordinances will also be on the site, but the coding company the city uses is still working on that portion. The ordinances should be available online around the first week of January. “City Codes” is actually a link to the coding company where the ordinances will be found.

The company will go on to revise the ordinances with the inclusion of all changes and supplements through the years in a new book. The book of ordinances has not been revised and reformatted since 1960.

“But for now they’re taking what we have for the site,” Fuchs said.

A variety of city maps are on the site. Along with a general map of the city, there’s a zoning map, a garbage pickup map and one showing emergency snow routes. There’s even a map of planned street projects for the summer and one showing the city’s water system.

Want to know what your property tax will be or was? There’s a property tax portal to the state system. Residents can easily find specific information by choosing the county and entering name or parcel number. “It will tell you everything that’s on the tax statement,” Fuchs said.

The site also has Frequently Asked Questions. Right now there are 12, but more will be added as needed.

“We put in the questions we get asked a lot,” he said.

Under Government, the city’s bids as well as council and committee agendas are or will be listed. Minutes going back to 2006 are going to be found in this section. The city’s current budget and annual audit are also included.

Community News updates daily with the current news articles from The Jamestown Sun website. The site has links to North Dakota’s tourism department and Buffalo City Tourism on its home page. It also has links to a dozen other websites under Community.

There’s even a “How Do I?” section. If a resident has a concern to report, for example, there’s a spot to write a message and get an answer.

This is only a portion of all the information that will eventually be accessible on the city’s website. It’s a work in progress.

“Our intent is to get the information out there,” Fuchs said.

Sun reporter Toni Pirkl can be reached at (701) 952-8453 or by e-mail at tonip@jamestownsun.com

Tags: local news, news, website