by ANDY SEVILLA
From the rail depot Buda was in the 1880s to the population boom it now enjoys, the city has undergone several makeovers, the most recent of which showcases a contemporary municipal website.
Buda’s online reformation features a redesigned city webpage geared toward citizen-focused, interactive communication, and it also catapults the city into social media.
Buda’s Tourism Director Alisha Burrow said the city’s webpage redesign had been in the works for at least a year and it finally came to fruition when it went live in July.
Burrow said the former city webpage had antiquated technology, whereas the redesigned site is more “useable, professional, and adaptable for future use.”
The city’s web site address can still be found at www.ci.buda.tx.us.
“The main difference is the connectivity and the interaction,” Burrow said. “Each department is now able to manage its (online) content, forms, and documents, rather than before, where all of our information came through one department and then was updated (on the website). Each department now can manage its own content, making sure that it’s fresh and up to date, so we have accountability now.”
Buda residents now can enjoy minimized wait times for the dissemination of information online, and also are offered the opportunity to streamline concerns and questions to city departments, get city and emergency alerts via email or mobile phones, and even pay bills through the city’s webpage.
CivicPlus, which specializes in local electronic government, redesigned Buda’s webpage at a cost of $20,000, which includes the first year’s annual support, maintenance, and web hosting, Burrow said. But, not only did the city get a new webpage, she added, the tourism department also had their website redesigned, and also will receive annual support, maintenance, and web hosting included in the cost.
CivicPlus and Buda are locked into a two-year contract, and upon its expiration, the city can renew the contract or seek a new vendor. If the city decides to continue business with CivicPlus, in the fifth year of partnership, the city would get a complimentary website redesign to keep abreast of new technological advances.
“Our content will be the same, but we’ll get a redesign to keep it fresh,” Burrow said. “CivicPlus is a company that specializes in government websites and municipalities, so they understand the intricacies of having to have different types of applications, not only on the government side, but also for interacting with your community.”
Buda also joined the social media giant, Facebook, and now the city and the city’s tourism department both have fan pages. Buda’s Facebook page states that they joined the social media site on July 25, and since then have received eight “likes,” posted one profile photo and one wall photo, and are announcing a meeting Thursday, via a Facebook status, to consider revisions to the city’s transportation master plan; they have also shared the city’s 2011 water quality report on their fan page.
“By integrating the social media we hope that, with that, comes more participation and more interest in local government,” Burrow said. “We just want to be aware, we want to communicate and get the information out there in a clear and concise manner, and as accurate as possible.”
Burrow said Buda does not have an Information Technology (IT) department, so city staff presented the IT committee, which is a subcommittee of the city council, with plans to move forward with a city webpage redesign affording technology surpassing only posting council agendas and calendar events. She said city staff wanted a website that was interactive, visually pleasing, and conducive to implementing web-based programs, such as social media. City council members later approved moving forward with CivicPlus for the websites redesign.
“So far it has been going very well,” Burrow said. “We have received great compliments via using the ‘notify me’ application (on the city website). We’ve seen a lot more social engagement, community engagement. Our information, we’re getting up (on the website) a lot quicker than we have before.”
Visit the new home page at http://www.ci.buda.tx.us/
