City of Wasilla to launch Web site

WASILLA -- The city of Wasilla's Web site will be open to the public soon, and city officials allowed the Frontiersman to preview the site last week. The site has links into various departments such as finance, police, public works and the Mat-Su Youth Court. A brief tour through the site showed that the various departments linked have posted pages to the site that include general information and printer-ready forms such as the city's sales tax packet for businesses.

"The Web site is another thing that I wanted done when we left, so we could provide more services for our residents," said Wasilla mayor Sarah Palin. "It's another thing we can check off our list."

Palin credited council member Noel Lowe with leading the city to the Internet. Lowe works as a technical account manager in Anchorage for CompuCom, a national company that deals in computers and software for businesses. Lowe said Wasilla will have spent $20,000 for the Web site by the time it is launched.

"We see a real movement toward an e-government," Lowe said. "We're going to push information to our customers rather than make them come to us for the information-- because it's their information, and in the future we're going to push services their way as well."

Lowe called the site "more than just an electronic flyer" and said the site design allows for future applications to be added on with a minimum of expense and hassle. Lowe calls it an "open architecture."

"One of the our biggest challenges in creating the site was to brainstorm with the providers of the information, the department heads, and with the consumers of the information," Lowe said.

One goal was to provide a site that allows future applications to be added on. For example, the site already includes information and forms that a business can use to learn how to pay sales taxes. In the future, the city could add technology to the site that allows the sales tax bill to be paid online. Lowe said that planning for such additions is important for avoiding extra expense in the future.

"With some planning and research you can reasonably avoid most of the re-engineering hassles that could come your way," he said.

The current site architecture allows city departments to update information on the site from city hall. Lowe said that allows for a continuously updated site without the expense of paying an outside contractor.

"It's dynamic. We want the data to change in real time, but the framework is finished today," Lowe said.

Lowe said the site architecture was designed by an Anchorage-based firm called Denalitek with graphics by DC Design. City officials are still adding content to the site. The site will be available to the public soon at www.cityofwasilla.com.