La Cañada updates Web presence
More than a decade after the city of La Cañada Flintridge entered cyberspace, City Hall on Friday unveiled its new, long-anticipated online home at www.lcf.ca.gov.
The website replaces a redesign done in 2004, which itself replaced the original site built in 1999. Last week’s launch went as planned, said Kevin Chun, the city’s director of Administrative Services.
Chun said that the $11,000 redesign had been in the works since last year, and was developed with assistance from the city’s technology services vendor, SADA Systems.
Chun said that city officials wanted to move to a platform that would allow city staff to more quickly add new information to the site, and to allow better access to city documents for residents.
“On this new platform it gives us a lot more control, we’ll be able to edit it a lot quicker,” he said. “The old website made it a little difficult in how you would access or even find city documents … now we have links to documents, as well as a search feature.”
Chun said that with residents better able to find the forms and information they need, the new website could help make City Hall more efficient.
“People don’t just have to come into City Hall or call City Hall, they can go to the website any time of day and find the information they need,” he said.
Chun said that the next feature the city hopes to add to the site is the ability to share videos of City Council meetings.
The city’s new website is hosted through Google’s Sites application, which is included in the cost that the city already pays for Google technology services such as email.
The city’s former domain of www.lacanadaflintridge.com, which housed the combined website for both the city and the La Cañada Flintridge Chamber of Commerce, will now be used solely for the chamber, which is also planning to launch its own online redesign by the end of the year, according to Pat Anderson, president and chief executive.
Anderson said that most important components of the chamber’s current website are its directory and its commercial-property availability listing, and that accessibility to these features would be emphasized in any redesign. Anderson also said that the chamber would be adding new features, like the ability for chamber members to sign up for events and buy tickets through the website.
“We’re going to try and make this as transparent as possible and make it easy on folks who are accessing the website,” Anderson said.
Although the chamber and the city are going to have separate websites for the first time, they’re going to keep the two linked together.
“Frequently visitors to the website are not quite sure until they get there whether they want [information about] the chamber or the city,” Anderson said, “so it makes sense for us to stay together on many levels.”