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Safety Harbor to pay $15,000 to redesign Internet site

Feeling the current design is dated and difficult to use, the City Commission hires a Kansas firm to create an updated look.

By EILEEN SCHULTE
Published July 7, 2005

SAFETY HARBOR - It averages 5,303 page hits per day.

But once an Internet surfer clicks on the city's official Web site, they find it can be difficult to navigate.

And it's not exactly pretty, either.

On the home page is a photo of the fountain in Marina Park with what looks like birds flying through it.

On the left hand side are a listing of city departments and other general information.

Visitors can pay their utility bills, look up the library's hours and find out when the city commission is going to meet again.

But it's kind of boring.

"It's got a dated look to it," said James Burke, Safety Harbor's network administrator, adding that the site was created about seven years ago.

So the City Commission voted to devote $15,000 to redesigning it.

After receiving bids between $6,000 and $100,000, the commission chose a company called CivicPlus in Kansas to do the job.

"All their Web sites looked good," Burke said. "We felt with $15,000, we could get a quality Web site."

Burke researched other city Web sites for inspiration.

He said he was impressed with Oldsmar's site, which greets visitors with a cheerful "Welcome to Oldsmar, a great place to live and work!" message, and offers a link to the Weather Channel so visitors can get the temperature and 10-day forecast, among other functions.

Burke wants something equally user-friendly.

"We want to give current information to citizens and make it easy to access," he said. "It should look radically different."

Burke said Safety Harbor's Web site still looks very much as it did when it was initially designed.

"There have been some minor cosmetic enhancements," he said. "But the basic design has stayed the same."

He said although specific enhancements have not been decided yet, residents will see an events calendar, a local news bulletin area and improved organization of documents such as meeting minutes.

"Staff from various city departments and the City Commission have received input from citizens directly about suggestions for improvement," Burke said. "We have been able to satisfy many of the requests previously and we hope to satisfy the rest with this redesign project."

He said the redesigned site should be online by the end of the year.

Eileen Schulte can be reached at 727 445-4153 or schulte@sptimes.com

[Last modified July 7, 2005, 01:01:15]