HOMETOWN HAPPENINGS: A New (Digital) Look for Clarkstown

By Town of Clarkstown Supervisor George Hoehmann

This week I was excited to announce the launch of the new Clarkstown website.  I’ve always strived to make town government open, transparent and accessible to all residents.  That’s why I commissioned a new website that residents would be better able to navigate to more quickly find the information they are looking for.

How we interact with each other and our institutions, like government, has changed dramatically over the past five years.  We are a visual society, with screens at the tip of our fingers all day, seeking to maximize our time and efficiently manage our lives.

A dedicated team of town employees understood that and worked diligently to produce the site I encourage you to visit (and revisit!) today: www.clarkstown.org.

From the moment you view our home page, you will immediately see we now have a site that is profoundly more visually inviting, efficient and user friendly.  Since most internet activity is now in the palm of our hand, it was important that the site be mobile friendly. Our new site accomplishes that goal with a sleek new design that works well on your desktop as well as on your tablet and phone.

The new layout has all the bells and whistles (to use an antiquated phrase) that you’ve come to expect. The site offers drop-down and scroll-over menus to help you get to the information you need.

What I like best is that it “thinks” the way we do about how we access information. For example, the top menu has a “How do I?” tab.  The next word may be “apply”, “find” or “apply for.” Our new site will lead you there and to many of our most frequently requested information, like our parks programs, our 311 constituent requests app and other basic information for town services.

The new site also emphasizes transparency making town board and other boards and commissions agendas and information more readily accessible.

I think we’re off to a solid start, but it will continue to be a work in progress and evolving every day.  We want to know your thoughts and suggestions. Send them to webmaster@clarkstown.org. We’re also looking to spruce up our daily E-Newsletter.  So take a moment to log in to our new site, check it out and sign up for E-news!

  Clarkstown, clarkstown website, george hoehmann