Meaford is pioneering a new form of municipal website.
CAO Frank Miele says a ‘community portal’ will soon replace what you currently see at www.meaford.ca.
Miele says there are three major things wrong with the current site — it’s outdated, it’s hard to navigate, and it can’t be updated in house.
He explains that a community portal brings City Hall onto a virtual level with a centralized database of all sectors, including government, business, health, and education.
He says that information is currently out there, but it is spread out and hard to find.
Miele says the new site will be integrated with all the stakeholders in the community, including the library and chamber of commerce.
Miele says he’s been working on this concept for the past 15 years, starting in Vaughan where he helped them create one of Canada’s first municipal website’s.
He says he wants Meaford to lead the way in developing a new form of website because the world of advertising is changing.
Miele says a good municipal website is extremely important, as 98 per cent of people considering a new community go online first to check it out.
The portal will cost 30-thousand dollars to develop and the money is coming from an OMAFRA grant.
Council put out an RFP in November and Miele says they had an excellent response.
The project has now been awarded to F3 eBusiness Inc. and Miele believes you’ll start to notice changes online this April.