City of Arkansas City set to launch new website on April 29

Redesigned www.arkansascityks.gov will highlight citizen-friendly features

ARKANSAS CITY, Kan. (April 27, 2021) — Just in time for Arkansas City’s 150th celebration, residents may notice something a little different when they visit the City of Arkansas City’s official website April 29.

Starting early April 29, the City’s two domains, www.arkansascityks.gov and www.arkcity.org, will switch over to the City’s new website, provided by Municode Corporation.

The dynamic website will continue to feature beautiful photos that show off Ark City’s community character, according to Public Information Officer Andrew Lawson, plus many citizen-friendly features.

“While our current Revize website is a dramatic improvement over what the City had previously,” Lawson said, “it is still lacking in a few areas. Staff spent the past couple of years looking for suitable alternatives and I am proud to say that we found a better option in Municode that will save tax dollars.”

In addition to reducing the City’s annual cost of website hosting and design services, the new contract with Municode includes a brand-new option, called Municode Meetings, that will greatly streamline the creation of agendas, minutes, and packets for the City Commission and City boards.

This will result in increased transparency and quicker delivery of materials to both citizens and staff.

“I am excited about the potential for Municode Meetings to increase citizens’ connectivity to the governance process,” Lawson said, “especially how well it integrates with GoToMeeting and YouTube.”

These features will be accessible directly from the front page of the website from the “Meetings & Recordings” tab, where citizens will continue to also be able to access Online Payments and Job listings.

The front page also will highlight Latest News and Upcoming Events in the Arkansas City area.

Later in May, Visit Ark City will debut its new website as part of this Municode platform, and the Arkansas City Police Department will launch its new custom-designed section as part of arkcity.org.

Because the City is a current Municode customer for the management and web hosting of its Municipal Code, that feature will continue to be available to citizens through existing links.

“Best of all, our robust Municipal Code search engine will now work sitewide, allowing citizens to find what they are looking for with just one search term, regardless of whether that information is on the website, in Code, in a form or PDF document, or somewhere within Municode Meetings,” Lawson said.

The ease of navigation is highlighted by the ability to access most parts of the site through multiple methods, including an “I Want To…” section that will feature the most common citizen search inquiries.

Like the City’s current Revize website, the new Municode website also features a Responsive Web Design that automatically scales the site to fit users’ browsers on computers, tablets and smartphones.

It also is much easier for City staff to maintain the site and upload new information, which will result in an ever-changing environment that will feature the latest news announcements and calendar events.

The website remains automatically integrated with the City’s Facebook page and Twitter feed, and YouTube recordings of City Commission meetings remain available along with agendas and minutes.

Finally, an emphasis on accessibility and interactivity is evident throughout the site, from an email form for common complaints to a sortable staff directory.

“We hope this website design will improve readability for some of our older or visually impaired residents who might have had trouble reading the smaller typefaces on the old website,” Lawson said.

A Google translation tool easily accessible in the bottom navigation bar will allow citizens to translate the entire website into several different languages, including Spanish.

“We wanted this site to be more accessible to residents for whom English is not their native or primary language,” Lawson explained.

Additional features to improve citizen engagement, such as a text-based citizen complaint reporting and tracking system, will be highlighted in future releases on the site and through local media sources.

“We urge citizens to keep checking the site for new features through the next few weeks and months,” Lawson said. “We will be rolling out a variety of exciting new features in several phases.”

The site also will feature a database of past and future city projects, directories for both key documents and forms, public bid postings, park locations and amenities, and emergency sitewide alerts.

Online utility payments can continue to be made as before through a third-party portal. “We also hope to offer additional services with an online payment option in the future, as well,” Lawson said.

For questions or assistance in accessing or using the new City website, please contact Lawson by email at alawson@arkansascityks.gov or call him at (620) 441-4415.