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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.

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