Web site discussed at county meeting

BENTON - Scott County officials hope to put together a Web site that will be informative yet manageable.

Commissioners discussed the Web site, which is being produced by Creative Design Group of Malden, with County Economic Developer Jim Schwaninger during their regular meeting Tuesday.

"I'm really feeling good about it," Schwaninger said. "I think it will be a good service for everybody." The site should be up and running in 30-45 days, he said.

The first step is to finalize a format template for each of the county departments' home pages. Once completed, this will be followed-up with additional information from each department for their portion of the site.

The goal, Schwaninger said, is "making the Web site as complete as possible."

"Marriage licenses, court dates - all sorts of things could be built in there," he said.

Each office will be able to make simple changes to their department's section of the site while major changes will be made by Creative Design Group. The edits are included in the monthly fee, according to Schwaninger.

Also to be included for each office will be a FAQ, or "frequently asked question," section.

Contact information for each of the offices will include e-mail addresses. "Something easy to remember, like 'collector@scottcounty.com,'" Schwaninger said. The addresses would be permanent and would forward the e-mail to the current office holder's personal e-mail account.

Schwaninger also suggested posting the county's geographic information system base map and maps of school districts.

Also included in the cost of the package is registration with "Yahoo, Google and other major search engines to get our name higher in the listing," he said, noting on previous searches, "we were listed at like 141.

"We want people to reach our site as easily as possible," Schwaninger said.

The site will include links to Case.net and other Web sites important to county residents. Schwaninger suggested linking to other governmental agencies within the county that are mistakenly thought by many to be part of the county government but are not such as the Scott County Health Department, ambulance districts and fire districts.

"We need to tell people how to contact them," Schwaninger said.

Commissioner Jamie Burger cautioned to not include too much information, however, and to keep the site "user friendly."