The Town of Canmore may be in line for a brand new website courtesy of CivicPlus, a company that specializes in building e-government communications systems, if it can garner enough votes before next month.
As one of the finalists for this year’s Extreme Website Makeover contest, which CivicPlus holds each year, Canmore is now relying on votes to take home the grand prize of a new fully developed website with custom design.
In addition to the new site, the grand prize waives the first two years of annual fees for operations. Two runners-up awards will also be handed out that contain a $5,000 discount in project development fees for a premium CivicPlus website.
Having a new website will enable residents and visitors to stay informed and interact with the Town as well as create more transparency on the municipal government side.
“They understand municipalities and they’re really working on websites to enhance municipal services,” said Sally Caudill, the Town’s communication co-ordinator regarding CivicPlus.
“Transparency is one of our accountabilities,” she added. “It’s something we strive to do all the time and we can always do a better job. If the website allowed us to do that it would be even better.”
Community issues dealing with roads or water could also be addressed with more efficiency if a new site was in place. The use of social media tools for advising residents of events and for them to interact with the Town is also a possibility.
“Things around mapping and trails in the community, all of this sort of web stuff that we know is available out there, but we just haven’t been able to tackle it,” she said.
“The current website is a couple of years old. The feedback we get is that this website is a lot better than the old one, but we still know there are issues with it,” she continued.
Although a new website has been put into next year’s budget, winning the grand prize, acquiring funding or merely seeing feedback from the survey will give the Town a boost to better its online presence.
“Right now we don’t have a staff person who looks after the website,” the coordinator explained. “Every department is responsible for their own content.
“IT has asked for a web administrator and we’ve also asked for some money to redo the website. There’s a lot of big things in the budget this year so we don’t know what will come forward,” she added.
The online voting system in place from CivicPlus is quick and requires voters to choose multiple-choice answers based on questions surrounding their usage of the Town’s website and what they would like to see improved.
Voting for the contest closes at 5 p.m. on Jan. 11. Winners will be announced before Jan. 21. The survey can be accessed from Town’s website at www.canmore.ca
All feedback received will be reviewed.
