City of Austin Web Redesign Project January 22, 2008

Town hall meetings bring Austin together to redesign
City Web site

For immediate release: Jan. 16, 2008

Austin residents have a unique opportunity to
contribute to the development of a leading-edge City
Web site and bring a new era of open government to
Austin with a series of town hall meetings planned for
January and February.

The town hall meetings are part of the Austin GO
project, launched late last year to collect and
utilize the public’s feedback about improvements to
the City’s Web site. During the six town hall
meetings, City officials will discuss the importance
of public involvement in the Web redesign project,
present an executive summary of the recent Web usage
survey results and outline the best practices embraced
by other cities. Austinites will have a forum to offer
ideas on what promises to be a new standard for
municipal Web sites.

The town hall meetings kick off at 6 p.m., Jan. 29,
2008, in the Council Chambers at Austin City Hall, 301
W. Second St. The other town halls are scheduled for:

7 p.m. Feb. 4, 2008, at the George Washington Carver
Museum, 1161 Angelina St.
7 p.m. Feb. 7, 2008, at the J.J. Pickle Research
Campus Commons Conference Center, Building 137, 10100
Burnet Road.
7 p.m. Feb. 12, 2008, at the Ruiz Branch Library, 1600
Grove Blvd.
7 p.m. Feb. 21, 2008, at the Austin Community College
Pinnacle Campus, room 1013, 7748 U.S. 290 West.
7 p.m. Feb. 25, 2008, at the Lower Colorado River
Authority Headquarters board room, 3700 Lake Austin
Blvd.

“Our goal is to make the City’s Web site a more open
and useful tool for interacting with local government
and municipal service providers,” Council Member
Leffingwell said. “Town hall meetings are a great
chance for Austinites to turn out and tell us how we
can make the City Web site even more relevant for
them.”

Launched in early 1995 as one of the few municipal
government sites in the nation, Austin City Connection
has grown from an initial 300 pages to more than
40,000. The site provides the public an Internet
portal to all City departments, services and
government functions.

The Web site redesign project, initiated by Council
Member Leffingwell, represents the first major upgrade
to Austin City Connection (www.cityofaustin.org) since
2002. The first opportunity for the public to
participate in the Austin GO project was by giving
feedback through the City’s Web usage survey
(www.austingo.org).

The results from the Web usage survey and town hall
meetings will drive the content development of the new
Web site.

Contact: Council Member Lee Leffingwell, (512)
974-2260
Pete Collins, Chief Information Officer, City of
Austin, (512) 974-2344
Chris Florance, Communications and Public Information
Office, (512) 974-2980

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/austingo/default.htm

Official Website: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/austingo/default.htm