Pittsfield is launching a new city website on July 7

By By Maryjane Williams The Berkshire Eagle

Pittsfield is launching a new city website on July 7

PITTSFIELD 鈥 The city is launching a new, more accessible municipal website.

The new website, pittsfieldma.gov, will go live July 7, replacing the current .org domain with a more user-friendly, mobile-compatible platform that makes it easier for residents to connect with the city. It’s not yet up and running.

鈥淚t’s more modern, it’s streamlined, so things are going to be easier to navigate,鈥 said project leader Catherine VanBramer, Pittsfield’s director of administrative services.

The existing website is packed with years of outdated documents and doesn鈥檛 work well on mobile devices, VanBramer said, so the city decided it鈥檚 鈥渢ime for a refresh.鈥

The city partnered with CivicPlus, a company that provides technology solutions for local governments, to design the new site and transfer content from the old one.

鈥淭he transition really helped us examine [the website],” VanBramer said. “We had some out-of-date things on the old website, and so it was a chance for us to trim those pages down and streamline the content.”

The migration was paid for by a $50,000 Community Compact IT Grant from the state, which also covered the cost of hosting the website for the first year. After that, it will cost the city about $25,000 per year to maintain the site, said Kevin Zawistowski, the city鈥檚 chief information officer.

The homepage of the new site is designed to give residents easy access to the topics that matter most, VanBramer said, with quick links that will be updated based on current needs, like one featuring voting information during election season.

鈥淭hat space gives us a lot of flexibility to be able to put information right front and center,鈥 VanBramer said.

The site will also be easier to navigate for non-English speakers, with a dropdown menu that allows users to translate the content into the language of their choice.

Staying up-to-date with community matters will be much more straightforward for residents, who will be able to sign up for alerts on city meeting agendas, calendar updates and more through the 鈥淪tay Connected鈥 tab.

鈥淪o our website is going to be another tool in our toolbox to be able to communicate in a quick and efficient way with our residents and community at large,鈥 VanBramer said.

The switch to the .gov domain will also boost security and help prevent the site from being imitated.

鈥淭he new web address [gives] residents the knowledge that it is an official government website, so information that we’re sharing on it is factual and that it’s a trusted resource,鈥 VanBramer said.

All city employee email addresses will switch to the new domain later this month.

Visitors to the old website will be redirected to the new one once it is launched. VanBramer asked for the public鈥檚 patience during the transition, as the developers may have to make some tweaks along the way.

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