Full question: Why was the decision made to put (bury) the community conversation under the How Do I section? In my opinion, that is not intuitive at all to find a conversation so relevant, important and crucial not featured on the City’s site and more readily visible to the public. It should also be prominent on the police department’s site. Please add this to our list of questions. I would really like to see a response.
Answer: Organizing large amounts of information on a municipal website is a fairly complex process. Our website platform has parameters about how it can be structured and only provides limited options for where to place information such as this (i.e. special initiative rather than a department information, calendar, etc). After careful consideration, the How Do I/Learn More section was determined to be the most logical place for this information. It is where other important information has been placed (Sewer Fees, DEI page).
Further, the DEI page can be accessed by a tab at the top of the homepage and from there you can navigate to a link to the Community Conversations webpage. In addition, there is a link to the Community Conversations webpage from the Police webpage by clicking on Policy Review and Reform Work.
Also, because users navigate websites differently, people often use the search function to find information they are looking for on websites. By typing in “Community Conversations” into the search bar, the user is directed to the page. Lastly, Community Conversations webpage was highlighted with links in various ENews and social media posts to draw attention to it.
(Question submitted at City Council’s 10/26/20 Work Session)