City to unveil new and improved website

If all goes according to plan, the new and improved City of Rhinelander website will go live on Sept. 6.

The City Council, which has pushed for a more user-friendly online experience for those seeking information about city government, got a sneak peek during its Aug. 28 meeting.

IT coordinator Tara Tessmann and deputy city clerk Moria King showed the alderpersons how to navigate the new site which will be located at www.rhinelander.wi.us.

“Each department can control their own content so they don’t have to wait on the clerk’s office or request someone else to upload a file or images, they can do that themselves,” King told the alderpersons. 

“It’s really intuitive and easy to use,” she added.

Agendas, meeting minutes, election information, and other content is easily accessible via the streamlined interface and the site also offers links to citizen engagement opportunities, King explained.

There’s also a translate button allowing those for whom English is a second language to access and understand the site, she added.

The council members appeared pleased with the updated site.

“It looks good to me,” said alderman Gerald Anderson. “A significant improvement.”

City Clerk Austyn Zarda praised King and Tessmann’s work on the website project.

“As you can see, there’s a ton of information on this website,” he said. “You can see the amount work that went into this. Moria and Tara have been working extremely diligently on this and honestly I look at this website as a source of pride, comparing it to our old website and how much information is available. So I personally want to thank, as a resident of the City of Rhinelander, both Moria and Tara for their hard work in creating this website.”

Zarda’s remarks were followed by a round of applause from the body.

Heather Schaefer may be reached at [email protected].