Let's Talk: Village Debuts Shiny New Website to Improve Transparency

If you were as busy as I was on Friday, you probably didn't notice that the 's website finally got the facelift officials have been talking about.

The new site debuted at 5 p.m. with enhanced features for residents, visitors and the business community, as were promised when the board presented the soon-to-be finished product at a regular board meeting in late August. The site aims at increasing government transparency, officials have said, and will likely cut down on the number of .

Residents can peruse the latest meeting minutes, see contracts for village projects and even report local concerns such as flooding or electrical outages. Applications for business licenses, vehicle stickers and permits are now available at the click of a mouse.

Users will also have quick access to utility bills and communication tools, Janet Boling, the village's public information officer, said in an e-mail last week.

Revamping the site follows the Illinois Policy Institute 10-point Transparency Checklist for governmental bodies, according to a village memo. The points—financial audits and salaries of village employees, to name a couple—can be found in various spots on the new homepage.

The site came with a more-than $30,000 price tag, officials said, and that cost includes its first year of maintenance. Some of that fee may be off-set by the decrease in time village staff spend filling FOIA requests—costs to fill them are calculated based on hourly wages.

How do you feel about your village taking steps to ensure government transparency? Do you think the new site will accomplish the goal of keeping residents informed? Think it will curb the ?

What else would you like to know about the site or the process it took to launch it?

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