Fruita.org has been recognized by Juggle as one of the top city government websites in the state of Colorado. Below you'll find an interview with Chris Dehmel, Engineering Technician for the City of Fruita.
- Fruita.org is a top-notch web portal; what has been your role in its development?
Fruita has had some sort of web presence for about ten years now, and the main goal has always been to provide a convenient access point to municipal information, events and other city business for both citizens and non-citizens. I became involved in Fruita’s website in 2002, when we began our first full-scale revision of what had by then become a rather stale site. With no one person with both the knowledge and the time available to build and maintain a high-quality site, our web portal drifted towards obsolescence. After the first big revision of the fruita.org site, we tried letting each department of the city government maintain their own page, under the fruita.org domain. Again, some pages were kept fresh and current, and others were not. We began to have problems with inconsistent formatting from page to page. In 2008, a new City Council was elected, and directed City staff to bring the fruita.org web portal back to life. Since the lack of resources to contract out the work or hire a fully-qualified individual was still an issue, city leadership decided to keep the redesign in-house, but designate one individual with responsibility and accountability for the condition of the website. I got the job. Since the philosophy of page maintenance has changed from “maintenance by the masses” to “one guy gets the job”, we’ve had a much easier time keeping up with changes in both formatting and content.
- Can you summarize the history of Fruita’s web portal?
Fruita’s web portal began life as a consultant-designed page set, focusing more on the history of the town than current events. Through the years, it became apparent that we needed more from our website, especially concerning current municipal news and events. In 2002, we initiated our first full-scale revision of fruita.org, and brought a lot of life back to the site. We started including information from our City Council meetings, an event calendar, we contracted with an online registration company for our Parks and Recreation Department programs, and we brought what was a mostly-consistent formatting feel to the site. Since we had no webmaster, we left the upkeep of each page in the hands of individual city departments (some who had no web ability at all). Again, some information started to get stale, while other information was kept fresh. In 2009, the City decided to undergo a full-scale revision again, and we built the current iteration of fruita.org. The single biggest difference between the sites we had and the site we have now has been a change in the philosophy of management; one person has been designated to keep the site fresh and current. It’s made a big difference.
- What are the overarching objectives of Fruita’s current e-government initiatives?
I’m not sure the City of Fruita has any “overarching objectives” regarding e-government initiatives; the drive to make fruita.org a relevant site makes it imperative for us to keep it as stocked as possible with current city information, documents available for download, maps, etc., so people keep coming back, and we keep having high ratings on efficiency and transparency when the citizen surveys go out every two years. We wanted to present a clear, easy-to-use access point to as many documents and forms as possible, common city maps and GIS information, and frequently asked questions, in an effort to keep our citizens coming back to this site for municipal information.
- From a marketing standpoint, what are some of the strategies that you have utilized to draw attention to the information and services provided by Fruita.org, both on- and off-line?
The City of Fruita uses all types of media to draw attention to the information and services provided by fruita.org. We have a billboard located at Exit 19 (Fruita exit), we use radio to promote festivals and other special events in our area, and regional print in the mountains and front range, social media, on-line advertising, and PR. In addition, we have close working relationship with the local Chamber of Commerce to help promote Fruita and all it has to offer.
- How has citizen feedback influenced the development of Fruita’s e-government services?
As tough as it is to say, we’ve had some negative feedback in the past regarding the content and formatting issues of fruita.org before this latest revision. Also, our citizen survey, which goes out every two years, has indicated that not many people have used our site in the past as a source for municipal information and events. This is a telling statistic. Since our redesign, we’ve had positive feedback from both the community at large and City Staff, who use the site as a tool to improve efficiency at City Hall.
- What is the most-used feature or service on the site?
Most of the feedback I have heard regarding usage of the site is focused on Parks and Recreation events and program registration. We’ve contracted with a company called “Vermont Systems Inc.” to manage our online recreation registration process, and since Fruita is an active community, our citizens do use that feature. Other pages, such as the employment page and our Police Department page, which has a link to a Fruita PD Facebook account, get a lot of hits.
- How do you balance the need to make the city website appealing to tourists with the need to provide governmental information to Fruita citizens?
The balance between municipal information and tourism “flare” was a fairly easy one to strike for us. Fruita contracts with a local marketing company (Cobb & Associates) to maintain http://www.gofruita.com, which has the latest information about accommodations, things to do, and deals in the area. We link to that page from the fruita.org homepage. Since the folks at Cobb and Associates have the expertise and time to build and maintain a page with a lot of bells and whistles, we figured we could put together a fairly basic site for the municipal side of things and still do what we needed to do to inform our citizens.
- Can you explain who Mike the Headless Chicken is and why he is featured on the Fruita city website?
Ah, Mike…No matter who I talk to outside the area, the subject always comes up. Mike the Headless Chicken was just that: a chicken with his head cut off. Except, like an Energizer Bunny of yesteryear, he kept going and going. For 18 months he kept going, until finally choking to death on a piece of corn fed to him by his owner and the man who travelled to country showing off his freakish pet. Every year, in May, the City celebrates the chicken that wouldn’t die with a weekend festival, complete with Peep-eating contests, politicians in chicken suits, and live music after dark. Last year, I won the Chicken Dance contest with my son (small towns-you gotta love ‘em).
- Where do you see e-government heading in the next 2-3 years? Are there any exciting new features or services currently in the works for Fruita’s web portal?
The direction that E-Government will take in the next few years is limited only by the imagination and technical ability of those who build and maintain these sites now. I don’t see a lot of resources becoming available for fruita.org, so it will be imperative to be able to do more with less. Normally, I’m making maps, designing sewers, and building databases for our Public Works guys. Now I’m also the webmaster. It’s this kind of flexibility and “jack-of-all-trades” attitude that can bring out creativity and problem-solving abilities that a person otherwise wouldn’t have known they had. The website may not be fancy, but it is functional, and it is current. That’s what we’re after, and anything else is gravy. As we move forward, and as we receive requests from the public and City staff, we will continue to learn and create, and we will continue to improve fruita.org.
- Is there anything else you would like to tell us about Fruita.org?
We’d all like to thank juggle.com for noticing the work and time we’ve spent on our website, and we hope to continue to improve fruita.org so we keep winning awards.