Arlington Online:

A municipal Web site connects to its community

Bob Sprague, Webmaster for the Arlington, Massachusetts, site

Notes for presentation to the Alliance For Community Media spring conference April 5, 2002

SCHEMING: HOW THE SITE HAS GROWN SINCE 1998

From 1998 to the present, I have overseen the conversion of the site from an unnamed collection of community Web links to Arlington Online, a fuller-service site aiming for e-government. Among the features introduced during that period:

1.) Under contract to two key outside Web companies -- Virtual Town Hall and MapCiti.

VTH of Portland, Maine (www.virtualtownhall.net/), provides Arlington:

· Copy-and-paste document-posting via authorized users (minutes, warrants, announcements, any document -- without my converting to HTML).

· Web calendar (all official meetings of Arlington's 50+ boards/ commissions, many agendas and some community information if non-commercial, Town Hall-related).

· E-mail connection (thus plugged into VTH's system can get document updates, meeting notification).

· Online registration for recreation programs.

· Online feedback form, which I use to answer public queries or route them to departments that can answer.

MapCiti.com, produced by Syncline of Boston (www.syncline.com/), working through our planning office, provides Arlington dynamic maps, via Java server pages, that have query-based info about schools, zoning, assessments, flood plains, streets, Arlington itself and the Symmes property, a former hospital on 18 acres the town has agreed to buy.

2.) Working with a town programmer, the site added two lookups:

· Online bill status (property and excise taxes, water/sewer bills) and

· Assessment data (less complex than MapCiti's).

3.) Timely and long-term school information. As communication specialist for the town's public schools, I have access to a wealth of valuable data -- much of which is posted on the Web site. This includes:

· A weekly column of School Notes, which I send to the local weekly newspaper, The Arlington Advocate (expanded for the Web).

· Summaries of School Committee meetings, posted the day after the meeting, with much accompanying official background provided to board members.

· All information (photos, reports) included in an Annual Schools Report, made public each spring since 1999.

· School cancelations or delays, posted on the Web and on Arlington's 10 school-related e-mail lists (these venues are supplanting Boston TV as the "place to look" for such announcements.

4.) Long-term town information, which includes:

· Ongoing DPW info (including trash-pickup days, recycling info).

· Some forms used in the Town Clerk's Office (voting, licenses)

· Detailed budget information for town and schools.

· Extensive legal information (town bylaws, zoning bylaws, traffic rules, etc.) -- all of it searchable.

5.) Timely town information, which includes:

· Announcements from key offices (manager, selectmen, police, fire).

· Posting of key public documents (Town Meeting warrants, selectmen decisions, official and unofficial summaries of Town Meeting sessions).

· Public postings of employment openings for town and schools.

6.) A general Web policy addressing criteria for posting.

DREAMING: WHERE THE SITE MIGHT GO

Under development or discussion are a number of online services, which I will discuss at the conference.

BEING REAL: PROBLEMS AND ISSUES

To be discussed at the conference.

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Page created March 4, 2002, and updated Sept. 14, 2006.