Illinois Cities Towns Enhance Municipal Services Through New Websites



While some observers may say that towns in the greater Chicago area and those "down state" don't
have much in common, one thing that municipalities across
the state share is their desire to meet the ever-changing
needs of their residents. Today, a number of Illinois
communities-large and small-are doing this by developing
new websites designed to provide easy access to municipal
services, news and information about their communities.
   
Recently, several Illinois communities have turned to
the professionals at Virtual Town Hall--a Portland, Maine-
based company specializing in the development of
customized, affordable web solutions for municipal
governments - to create citizen-centric websites. The
cities of O'Fallon (population 26,000), Highland
(population 8,500) and the Village of Monee (population
3,000) have worked with Virtual Town Hall to create new
eye-catching, interactive websites that provide easy access
for citizens, businesses and visitors.

St. Louis Suburb Streamlines Resources while Showcasing
Strengths

O'Fallon - one of the fastest growing communities in
the metropolitan St. Louis area - desired an improved
website that would showcase its reputation for being a
great place to live, work and visit. According to Pam
Funk, O'Fallon's assistant city administrator, "The old
website was extremely static with very unattractive pages.
We knew the site needed to be more interactive and
progressive to keep pace with the growing demands of our
residents and visitors."

"We also wanted a website that wouldn't require a
great deal of in-house technical expertise," continued
Funk. "It was important to us to have each department
maintain and update their own area of the website. The
people of Virtual Town Hall were not only progressive in
developing a stylish, citizen-focused website for O'Fallon;
they also provide the level of service and follow up that
we were looking for."

Among many other features on the new site, residents
can sign up for e-mail notifications about upcoming
meetings and news, contact city officials with questions,
sign up to volunteer and apply for permits and licenses
online. "The website has not only helped us to delivery
better service to our citizens, but with the decrease in
phone calls and foot traffic, it has helped us to
streamline our resources." stated Funk.

The new website can be found at www.ofallon.org.

City of Highland Website Provides Residents Easier Access
to Information.

The City of Highland, located 35 miles east of St.
Louis, is a dynamic, growing rural community offering a
range of services and activities in a small-town
atmosphere.
   
Highland did not have a website prior to launching
their site, but had a web presence through the local
chamber of commerce. Their biggest need was to provide
residents with easy access to municipal information. Scott
Borror, staff accountant for the city and project manager
for the new website, says "We did not include information
on community activities or the schools because it was
available on other sites in the area. Our website,
www.ci.highland.il.us, focuses on municipal government and
provides residents with important information, such as city
services, department contacts, meeting minutes and event
calendars."
   
"We chose Virtual Town Hall after looking closely at
12 different website developers," Borror said. "We liked
the simplicity of the systems and the creativity of the
websites Virtual Town Hall had developed for other cities
and towns around the country. Now that we have had the
website up and running for a while, we couldn't be happier
with the tools, training and customer service provided by
the people from Virtual Town Hall."    
   
Later this fall, Highland will add Virtual Town Hall's
new online genealogy and cemetery management service to its
municipal site. This online service is designed to assist
local town government offices to manage cemetery space. In
addition, consumers can utilize the service to conduct
genealogical research on deceased family members. "Because
of Highland's extensive Swiss heritage, we receive many
inquiries from across the country from people trying to
trace their forefathers. The new cemetery and genealogy
service will allow people to directly research and locate
their ancestors 24 hours a day through a simple name
search. This will help us save in staff resources," said
Borror.

Chicago Area Village Needed a Website that was Easy-to-
Manage

The most recent municipal website to be developed by
Virtual Town Hall in Illinois is for the Village of Monee.
Located 30 miles from Chicago in Will County, Monee is a
growing community rich in history and dedicated to
maintaining its small-town ambiance. Like O'Fallon, Monee
needed a website that would provide a balance of
information to its residents, visitors and businesses, but
also needed to manage and update the content of the website
in-house. Bringing the management of the site in house
allows Monee to provide more timely information to
residents, and the ease of use of the new site conserves
technical resources.
   
The new Village of Monee website, www.moneeil.com
provides information about the history of the area, village
departments and services, local boards and committees,
village codes, as well as information of interest to
residents, business & industry and visitors. Residents are
able to subscribe to news and announcements via e-mail in
order to stay informed of events and meetings that occur in
the town.
   
The Monee village administrator learned about Virtual
Town Hall at the 2004 Illinois Municipal League annual
conference and liked the fact that Virtual Town Hall
develops websites exclusively for municipalities.
   
These websites, as well as others developed by Virtual
Town Hall, will be featured in their exhibit (booth #312)
at the upcoming Illinois Municipal League annual conference
to be held September 22-25 in Chicago. For more
information about citizen-focused websites and how they
benefit municipalities, please visit the Virtual Town Hall
website at www.virtualtownhall.net.

About Virtual Town Hall

Virtual Town Hall provides website development,
content management, e-payments and other strategic e-
government online services for municipalities throughout
the United States. A Virtual Town Hall website is
professionally designed and easy to navigate. The
Microsoft Windows-based user-friendly sites can be updated
with unrivaled ease. Virtual Town Hall currently provides
e-government services for over 180 municipal and county
government clients across the United States.





Illinois Cities Towns Enhance Municipal Services Through New Websites