City of Farmington Website Gets a Makeover

With a historic photo of downtown Farmington as its backdrop, the city of Farmington's new website was launched last week with a cleaner look and more organized features.

City Clerk Sue Halberstadt, who worked on the design with City Manager Vince Pastue and Police Records Supervisor Corinne Brazzil, said the site was revamped by Muniweb, a Birmingham-based company that designs websites for cities all over the country. Rather than having to scroll through a long column of information on the home page, visitors to the site will find quick links to information about the community, local events, city services and departments, and much more.

"The goal was to put it in a more organized format," Halberstadt said. "We wanted something that reflects Farmington and its history and heritage. Just a warm feel to it was real important to us."

The city also wanted to work with a firm that would handle updates, to keep information flowing out to the community. City staff will ship information to Muniweb for posting on the website.

"Our first priority from this point forward is to be current," Halberstadt said.

The events calendar, which is up but not fully functional, is expected to be complete in about two weeks. The Department of Public Safety website also has to be redirected to the new site, and that should happen within a few days.

Halberstadt said the team started working on the project a year ago in January. Last year's major election delayed progress, she said, as did the lengthy process of transferring information from one service provider to another.

But it was all worth the effort, especially since the site hasn't really been updated since it was launched years ago.

"I'm just really excited about it," Halberstadt said. "I think it looks so much better."