Currently, Virtual Town Hall has developed websites for over 100 municipalities throughout Massachusetts, from large cities such as Lawrence (pp. 71,314), to small towns such as Tolland (pop. 432). Through this collective experience, we have come to understand the needs of municipal departments and their constituents across the Commonwealth and have created VTH Best Practices for help guide each department in building suitable websites.
Recent Examples
We urge you to tour our most recent client sites to better illustrate our capabilities, and the features and functions we believe are important to our clients and their constituents. A full listing of all Massachusetts sites is available upon request at MAClients@virtualtownhall.net.
Intentions Driven Navigation
Constituents expect easy access to the information they need. VTH has created a navigation structure that makes sense for the citizen, placing the most important and most requested information one or two clicks away.
An example of home page intentions navigation for Residents, Businesses, and Newcomers. The Commonwealth contracted VTH to build this site for the City of Marlborough as a navigation model for other municipalities.
An example of Quick Links navigation with Intentions Buttons for Residents and Businesses.
Dynamic Content Areas
Each home page can accommodate three dynamic sections that can be instantly updated by sending an email. Easily keep your constituents informed and up to date with the latest news, announcements, emergency information, job postings, and upcoming meetings.
One of the dynamic sections available to all VTH clients is a red banner that appears predominately when the town needs to make an emergency announcement or wants to highlight important information. The banner disappears when the information is removed.
An example of how one town uses the dynamic sections to post new Town News and separately provide a format for important Public Notices.
Hull has created an Opportunities section for posting job openings, board and commission vacancies, and available bids & proposals.
Minutes & Agendas
Instantly post minutes and agendas for any department, board, or commission by simply sending an email message; archive your information online for as long as you wish.
Besides having minutes and agendas available within each department, North Reading provides access to all information on one summary page linked from their home page via a Minutes & Agendas button.
Online Calendars
Create an unlimited number of monthly calendars to suit your town's needs, from Town Meeting & Town Events calendars to Recreation and COA calendars. Display an unlimited amount of information and links behind each event.
The Town of Arlington has a Calendars button on its home page with a link to six different online calendars: Meeting, Community Events, Library, School, Recreation and Recycling.
Forms & Documents
There is no limit to the amount of forms, documents, permits, and applications towns can place on a VTH website. The more information you provide online, 24/7, the less constituent phone calls and foot traffic you will experience.
Besides having all forms and documents available within each department, Belmont provides access to all information on one summary page linked from their home page via a Forms & Documents button.
Subscribe to News
Constituents can 'opt-in" to automatically receive emails from a municipality on any topic that is being updated to the website via VTH's email feature, such as news, announcements, job opportunities, new meeting minutes or upcoming meeting agendas.
For example, the Town of Wellesley lets citizens subscribe to news and announcements, board of selectmen meeting agendas, recreation news, and receation cancellation notices.
Online Bill Payments
Virtual Town Hall can link any website to any third party bill payment provider such as UniBank or MCC. We can even host your tax database online to permit real time calculations of back tax obligations and to give third parties such as realtors and banks instant access to tax information.
The Town of Sturbridge lets its constituents make online payments for personal property taxes, real estate taxes, excise taxes, water & sewer bills, and even contributions to their Elderly & Disabled Tax Fund.
Website Graphics
VTH firmly believes that municipal websites need to provide their constituents with easy access to current and accurate information. While this is our priority objective, we believe a quality design can help convey the true character of the town/city and help generate sustained interest in the site.
The Town of Sheffield utilizes a header with four randomly rotating pictures that changes everytime a visitor moves elsewhere on the site. While the look of the site and the navigation buttons remain constant, the changing photos deliver a real sense of the town and generate a great appeal throughout the site.
The Chatham site incorproates rotating images within the header. This is a wonderful way to present a variety of beautiful photos of a town.
Saugus incorporates a very attractive header that blends multiple images into one banner and also deploys a center slide show that displays a number of beautiful photographs of the town.
Other e-Government Services from VTH
Virtual Town Hall provides municipalities with a variety of other online services to help them better serve their constituents, 24/7. In addition to the services described below, we also provide towns and cities with email services, municipal intranets, and online polling capabilities. For more information on all our services, please click here.
Recreation Registration
We offer towns a recreation registration module that allows for the instant online registration of all recreation programs. Constituents can order online, 24/7, pay instantly and receive an immediate email confirmation. The VTH application also replaces any in-office software or spreadsheets so all information is fed into one database for processing and archiving.
Property Database Queries
For many town assessors and tax collectors, providing access to property data can be a tedious chore. Staff time is spent answering simple questions about ownership, property valuation, taxes, etc. By uploading property data to our servers you can now provide answers to the vast majority of those questions, 24 hour per day. Residents, banks and real estate agents can query based on name, address or parcel ID, and the server will provide as much, or as little, data as you wish to provide.
Geographic Information Services (GIS)
By providing online access to zoning and parcel maps you can increase access to valuable information while reducing traffic in your planning and assessing offices. We can host your existing GIS information or put you in touch with our GIS partner, Full Circle Technologies.
Cemetery Database Hosting
By providing access to public cemetery data via your website you can reduce traffic in your office, eliminate lost and misfiled records and improve customer service! You can also easily keep track of your inventory of available plots and provide for the sale of plots and ancillary services, AND produce revenue reports at the touch of a button.
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