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UTICA — Earlier in the year, the Utica City Council allocated money in the 2022-23 fiscal year budget to redesign the city’s website to provide more user-friendly features for residents and businesses.
The City Council in a 6-0 vote approved redesigning the city website at its July 12 meeting using current web services contractor Revize. Revize will give the city the choice of one of three templates for its updated website. All of the three designs are programmed to work on any size mobile screen.
Utica Mayor Gus Calandrino said that the most recent update of the city website occurred almost a decade ago.
“Earlier in the year, council allocated money in the 2022-2023 fiscal year budget to redesign the city’s website. The website was last updated in 2013 and is aesthetically outdated and noncompliant with new technology. Many users of the website access the web with smartphones, and the current website is not built to those standards,” said Calandrino.
“If you try to view it on a smartphone, it just simply doesn’t work,” he said.
He said that updating the website will help the city better provide services.
“Upgrading the technology that runs our website will allow us to provide more user-friendly features for our residents and businesses. Visually, the new design will incorporate more photographs and video. We are working with a drone videographer to provide beautiful aerial footage of areas of the city,” he said.
The total cost for the first year of the four-year agreement with Revize, which includes the website upgrade, is $3,625, and the price includes an annual subscription of $1,375. The city was already paying the annual subscription cost to Revize.
The city is partnering with Ron Robinson Studios for the videos and photos at a cost not to exceed $1,500. A motion to that effect also passed 6-0. Councilman Thom Dionne was absent from the meeting.
The process to update the website will take about four to six weeks, according to information in the agenda packet.
Lori Cooke, the Utica city clerk, said the city is making changes now and more will be coming.
“Our hope is to improve the user-friendliness of our website for the residents and to be able to add new features in the future,” Cooke said.
