The City of Sonoma has launched its new website several weeks earlier than planned, in order to provide a platform for community information during the fire recovery process.
The new site has now replaced the old, but is still located at www.sonomacity.org. It includes a special section called Fire Recovery.
“During the past week at the City’s Emergency Operations Center, we relied primarily on facebook to communicate important information not only to City residents but to the broader community. Going forward, our new website will be able to serve as our foundation for communications, providing a hub that is integrated with social media as well as new e-mail updates,” said Sonoma Mayor Rachel Hundley.
The new City website includes a mobile-friendly interface that adapts to all devices, improved search tools, language translation, and easy access to frequently asked questions, payments and issue reporting.
City Manager Cathy Capriola noted that the new website adds to the capabilities provided earlier this year by the CivicWeb portal, which provides ready access to City Council and Commission meeting agendas and reports and allows users to livestream City Council meeting while in progress or go back and review the archive later.
“We think that this new site will be more user-friendly and interactive, and allow us to provide a better city government experience for residents, businesses and visitors,” said Capriola. “But since we are launching earlier than planned, we ask for both patience and feedback as we build out some of the remaining content.”
Areas still in progress include status updates on both private development projects and City capital improvement projects. Some forms and documents are still being moved over from the older platform.
Website visitors are encouraged to give feedback using the ‘Feedback’ button on the bottom of all pages.
Sonoma is collaborating with Bay Area-based government technology software-as-a-service company Proud City for its new digital platform. Special thanks to the team at Proud City, who as the scope of the fire activity grew, stepped up to assist the City with an expedited launch to better serve the community.