Sarasota Website Migration – Discovery Phase -Preparing For Public Input
Latest Update from Justin Kloer, Project Manager: “Presently, we are in the discovery phase and are still gathering information. IT and our public affairs and marketing team are gearing up for the Engagement HQ site as well as the community survey. Since we want to get as much feedback from the public as possible, we are slowing down a little bit to make sure we have a solid and complete plan to get as much public engagement as possible. Those team members are about to take Site Admin training to help us build out this website for public engagement and information gathering. We are also evaluating survey questions and registration questions so we can have targeted data to work with. As we do this, we are looking at our past efforts and studies and those of other municipalities to learn and grow our best practices.” CCNA’s Board and their Project Steering Committee rep, Jim Ludwig, have communicated our willingness and ability to directly assist in this phase.
Background: Sarasota has embarked on a project to completely re-invent their website, contracting with Granicus to do an OpenCities website that is form based. What does that mean? The new website will be closer to a virtual city hall than ever before, allowing the public to do more online, thus saving visits and phone calls to city hall.
Led by Justin Kloer, City of Sarasota IT Project Manager, a team of “super user/subject matter experts” have been assembled from various city departments. In an introductory email from Justin, he said: “We will also be engaging the public in this endeavor and have two members, one from CCNA, (Jim Ludwig) and the second from DSCA (Patrick Gannon).
Though we won’t be able to accommodate every piece of feedback from every user and team, we will try to design the most inclusive and versatile website possible. We will demo the capabilities of the new platform and highlight all of the possibilities to get the group thinking about designs.
Please see the below neighboring cities that have OpenCities websites you can explore to get an idea of what is to come. I look forward to working with all of you soon.”
A Project Kick-Off meeting was held on May 7, 2024. Moving forward there will be regular planning and design meetings for the new website.
Jim Ludwig, CCNA’s 1st Vice President said: “I am very excited that CCNA will be a part of this game changing effort to give our community even more access to city services. I will be communicating on regular basis with our neighborhood leadership and foresee engaging them in various aspects as the project moves forward.”
