Councilman Don Tracy said he is a believer in first impressions. And in today’s society where an initial step is to search online, that first impression can many times mean a website.

That assertion has led the city to approve an overhaul of its current website, an endeavor that has brought multiple stakeholders to the table in guiding the project.

City Media and Communications Manager Jennie Huerta said the city website makeover has been on her to-do list since her first day on the job in December 2010. Since its inception, she has spearheaded a project that involves the City Council, a special-formed committee and the community. “This has been a massive undertaking so far,” Huerta said.

The current city website offers a variety of resources for local residents, businesses or anyone with interest in the city. But city staff, including City Economic Development Specialist Larry Holt, feel its design and usability is no longer suitable for a city of this size and stature. “I sometimes joke it makes up for being poorly organized by being slow,” he said. “There’s definitely a feeling from inside and outside suggesting that we do a complete overhaul.”

The committee created by the City Council to overlook the project sent out a request for proposals, which garnered responses from several website design companies. Vision Internet, based in Sacramento, Calif., eventually beat out its competitors. Tracy, who is a member of the committee, said Vision Internet’s portfolio coupled with a strong presentation to the committee helped cement their recommendation to the Council to choose the company. “They very clearly have a tremendous amount of experience working with government entities,” Tracy said.

Huerta said Vision Internet’s cost proposal landed lower than most other proposals at $51,145. Some of the higher proposals came in as much as $100,000. “In comparison to others, it was a really great product for the price,” she said.

With VI in place, the committee delved into planning for the new website. Usability and aesthetic qualities are both two huge factors in designing the new site, Tracy said. “It has to be attractive from an aesthetic standpoint,” he said, “And it has to reflect the kind of city we have.”

Having information accessible by one or two clicks of the mouse is one of many goals set by the committee, which continues to work with VI in designing the new website. Holt said the committee must take into account two types of visitors: those who live in the area and those who do not. Many location consultants for businesses do research online before ever visiting a city, he said. But that type of interaction is just as important toward local residents. “That interaction has become rather key, how professional and easy it is,” he said.

Huerta said better interaction means fewer web pages to navigate and less of a burden on city staff, which ultimately means saved time on both sides. “The website is most often a citizen’s, visitor’s or business’s first impression of what the city has to offer. But it also provides a lot of information to people. And I think the easier it is to use and navigate, that it certainly helps my job in communicating information to the public,” she said.

Committee member Elijah May said the website should make it easier to do anything from paying a water bill to finding out information on a Council meeting. “Information in general … should not be buried,” he said. “People are not terribly patient when it comes to the Internet. If they go there, and they don’t get what they need, they’re going to pick up the phone and call somebody.”

The city has invited stakeholders to the website, from local residents to businesses with ties to the area, to fill out an online survey. May said getting those ideas and feedback from the community will help steer the website redesign. “It’s really important that you are reaching out to the community and you are getting the pulse of the community,” May said.

Survey questions include asking for a list of adjectives and nouns describing the city, listing appropriate imagery for the website and choosing between different design elements like “traditional” or “modern/contemporary.” After Dec. 30, when the city ends the survey, May said the committee has the tricky task of taking all of the different opinions from the survey and moving with a design that makes sense from a design standpoint. “The absolute reality is that this is a highly subjective thing,” he said. “There’s functionality, and there’s aesthetics. And those aesthetics are highly subjective. At the end of the day, you can’t come up with this Frankenstein thing.”

Huerta said residents so far have made it clear they want a clean, easy-to-use website. “We have a very educated city and we know we have a lot of people here who work in the high-tech industry and have great expectations for our website to be all that it can be,” she said.

Tracy said the end result should be a website that reflects the family-oriented, award-winning city it has been built to showcase. “The website is the tip of the spear of the communications process for the city,” he said. “The website represents us. It’s the face of us.”

Link to Original:  http://cedarparkcitizen.com/2011/12/21/staff-committee-in-midst-of-city-website-overhaul/

By Macy Hurwitz | 19 May 2011 | Cedar Park Citizen

The prospect of building a huge science and technology center in the city is attractive to many, but the logistics and economic considerations needed to get there are daunting. Instead of surrendering the idea, Councilman Don Tracy thought the best way to proceed would be to work on a small first phase that could grow into the larger science and technology center, and he sees that first phase taking place in Building 6 of the new City Hall complex.

“There seems to be an opportunity now with the space that’s available at the complex to leverage it to begin accomplishing our strategic goal of the creation of a science center,” Tracy said.

He is looking to establish a place for entrepreneurs, independent contractors and small business owners to come together, socialize, share resources and collaborate in innovative ways. In the same space he sees opportunities for development that can build up to the large facility and program he and others have envisioned.

“I’m convinced that the solution begins with a co-working space,” Tracy said. “That’s a place — and you’re seeing this trend happening all over the country, all over the world in fact — where small businesses, entrepreneurs and independent contractors come together.”

He said he’s seen interest from Enzo Monfre and his father, Peter Monfre, of Enzoology to possibly partner in the project and help launch a community development initiative to expose area children to zoology. Projects like that would exist alongside collaboration and co-working to match the needs of modern businesses and entrepreneurs.

“We work from our homes, from our cars, coffee shops; there are a lot of talented and creative people who work just like that every day,” Tracy said. “This is the place where they work. This is the place where they build.”

Tracy gave a presentation to the rest of the City Council on April 28 and asked for input from his fellow Councilmen. Councilman Tony Dale said he saw a need for something like this in the community after trying to help his wife, attorney Mary Dale, establish her business in the city. “It was hard to find affordable business space to start an office. Also, when I look at this with the respect of my neighborhood, the amount of people who work out of their homes, I could find some potential for something like this,” Dale said.

“The technology has changed drastically and it’s going to change more,” Councilman Scott Mitchell said. “I can work in my chair at home and do the exact same thing I do at work.”

Mayor Pro Tem Mitch Fuller said he liked the idea of an economic development project outside the usual paradigm of a two-way agreement, with multiple partners and collaborators.

Tracy said he is encouraged after hearing the feedback he got from the Council and is going to do some more work to try and hammer down details of how exactly to go about launching a project like this. He said it could end up on a future 4B Community Development Board meeting agenda. He has not set on any future action yet. ]]> http://donforcedarpark.com/2011/07/16/tracy-spearheads-efforts-to-get-co-working-space/feed/ 1 http://donforcedarpark.com/2010/03/16/planetarium-plans-on-the-horizon-for-central-texas/ http://donforcedarpark.com/2010/03/16/planetarium-plans-on-the-horizon-for-central-texas/#comments Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:27:00 +0000 dtracy http://donforcedarpark.com/?p=475 By Ashley Porter | 15 March 2010 | News 8 Austin

About a month after discussions began among the Cedar Park City Council, the city created an ad-hoc committee to explore the feasibility of a major project that would include a planetarium.

“There are a lot of other things that encompass it, the planetarium just being one side of it. There’s other things like the science center, [art] galleries, the community space, even possibly looking at an IMAX theatre was also mentioned,” Cedar Park Assistant City Manager Jose Madrigal said.

Currently, the plan also includes a veteran’s museum.

Madrigal said discussions began after the growing success of the Cedar Park Center, alongside plans to bring a Schlitterbahn water park to the area.

“We’ve just got a concept and a vision, and we want to grow it out and reach it to its potential,” Madrigal said.

Austin is also considering a planetarium.

Austin Planetarium has worked for several years toward building one. The nonprofit had pre-conceptual designs created last year to show what the planetarium, science center and technology center might look like. The group raised $500,000 toward the construction of the project so far.

“We need a planetarium. Yes, we need a large-scale science museum,” Austin Planetarium Executive Director Torvald Hessel said. “There are 13 planetariums in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. We have none here.”

Austin is one of the largest cities in the country without a planetarium. The closest ones are located in San Antonio and Killeen.

Hessel said multiple locations in downtown Austin are under consideration, including one near the Long Center for the Performing Arts, and another along the southeast corner of Congress Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. He said he considers it a compliment that Cedar Park also sees the need for a science center.

“Eventually, I can see definitely a working partnership between the two facilities,” Hessel said.

Cedar Park is still in the exploratory phase, and there’s no solid schedule for when results might trickle down the pipeline.

“We’re still at the very beginning of the process, and we’re really getting excited to get ready to start going,” Madrigal said.

Heavenly bodies might be the next notch on the post for Cedar Park as it seeks to become a destination city. On Thursday, the City Council discussed plans to create a science and astronomy center.

“Since Central Texas does not have a planetarium I thought that might be an interesting thing to do,” said Mayor Bob Lemon, cautioning that the city should not be in the planetarium business and should find local partners to work with.

A planetarium is already being planned in the Austin area. Austin Planetarium (austinplan etarium.org) hopes to break ground for a 115,000 square foot facility in 2012, assuming adequate funding can been secured.

Lemon also described how the 4A Economic Development Board has the vision for a “much larger project” which could see a full- blown science center born.

What would such a science center look like? Lots of things, according to Don Tracy and Alain O’Toole, who gave a presentation before the council. Tracy, who is running for City Council in the upcoming elections and sits on the 4A board, said the center could boast a planetarium, business incubator, science lab and veterans museum.

“My original suggestion was to find someone who owns land to partner with, someone who has interest in operating a planetarium,” Lemon said. “The 4A board has a vision for a much larger project.”

Tracy and O’Toole envision a place where kids can do projects in a science lab, learn about natural history, focus on advanced technology and connect with their Central Texas roots.

Community partnership would be vital, Tracy said, echoing Lemon. Austin Community College, Leander ISD and the Tourism and Public Arts boards could all be involved.

“It’s a chance for us to work together,” he said.

O’Toole, who sits on the city’s tourism board asked the City Council to look into creating a joint committee made up of local council and board members to refine the idea and assess its feasibility.

Councilmember Scott Mitchell said those charged with envisioning the project should not worry about cost but about value.

“We’ll figure out a way how to buy it,” he said. “If we think it’s worth it, we can work out how to finance it.”

Councilmember Lowell Moore said the city should look into grant funding options.

City Council also nominated seven people to the new Public Arts board after hearing from over a dozen interested applicants. Those appointed were Mark Ledyard, Robert Carter, Andy DeBruyn, Geraldine Smythe, P.J. Gorski, Joe Fiacco and Sheela Goodrich.

Cedar Park Mayor Bob Lemon had an idea.

Noticing that Central Texas does not host a planetarium—and brainstorming on what the city should take on as its next project—Lemon floated the idea to a couple of people, including the 4B Economic Development Corporation. Once the 4B Board and members of a couple of other committee members got a hold of the idea, they embraced it.

4B Board President Brian Rice said the board has set aside money in its budget to do some assessments toward building a city science center. However, the two people who took the idea the farthest were newly appointed tourism board member Alain O’Toole and 4A Board member and City Council Place 6 candidate Don Tracy.

“Several weeks ago, right before Christmas, this idea of the planetarium was thrown out there and Alain and I started thinking through the possibility of building upon that planetarium idea and creating something that could serve as a destination, community development engine and an economic development engine,” Tracy said.

O’Toole and Tracy gave a presentation outlining their vision for a Cedar Park Science Education Center. The CPSEC would have a community center, a planetarium, a history museum, a veterans museum and an art gallery. They see it both as a place where local residents can take their families to learn and play, but also as a place that would attract visitors from all over Central Texas.

O’Toole stressed the opportunities for collaboration between all of the boards, committees and other groups in the community on the project. She gave several examples of ways to bring the boards together as well, such as having the newly formed public arts board spearhead the art gallery, getting the 4A and 4B Boards involved in guiding the project through and getting the Cedar Park Veterans Memorial Citizen Committee involved in the veterans museum.

“It’s a chance for us to work together,” O’Toole said.

Lemon approached Austin Community College to garner interest in a partnership on the project, and he said the representative he spoke to was interested and said she would take it to their board.
Mayor Pro Tem Matt Powell, who works at Concordia University in Austin, said he would like to take the idea to the university to see if it would be interested in partnering as well. Powell said he saw the project as a possible way to bring an IMAX theater to Cedar Park, something he wanted but did not materialize for the 1890 Ranch development.

“It’s something I never really let go of,” he said.

Powell said the IMAX theater could show educational films and other movie genres. He used the Bob Bullock Texas History Museum in Austin as an example, saying the museum brings in a lot of money by showing films like “The Dark Knight” and “Avatar.”

The Council as a whole, minus absent councilmen Cobby Caputo and Mitch Fuller, showed interest in the idea.

Both Lemon and Councilman Scott Mitchell said it was a great idea, and the first step should be to give the public a chance to comment and gauge how much interest there is. The rest of the Council agreed.
“That’s really important to know what other people think,” Councilman Tony Dale said.
He added it was important to have a strong involvement in the project from the private sector to make the science center idea sustainable.

The Council decided to move forward with the idea by creating an ad hoc committee to work on it and discuss it at the next Council meeting.

Other Council action

The Council appointed seven people to the Public Arts Board. Andy deBruyn, Paul Gorski, Joe Fiacco, Geraldine Smythe, Robert Carter, Sheela Goodrich and Mark Ledyard were all appointed to the newly formed board and will serve two-year terms.

The Council decided to send Lemon and Powell to Washington D.C. to meet with Congressional staffers and legislators to seek funding for road projects. They will be meeting lobbyist Travis Lucas in D.C. in early March.

Assistant City Manager Jose Madrigal said the transition between solid waste providers is almost finished. Red River has not collected all of its equipment yet, but Red River has until Feb. 15 to collect the rest of its trash carts from local residents. Any stray carts left after that date will be picked up by Cedar Park Disposal.

CEDAR PARK — First, Cedar Park officials helped developers build an arena and bring a hockey team to Cedar Park. In January, city incentives lured a Schlitterbahn water resort to town.

Now, Cedar Park leaders plan to continue their goal for the city of more than 50,000 people to become a tourist destination with hopes to build a science center.

Council members and city staff discussed during a council meeting Feb. 11 their vision for building a state-of-the-art center that could include a planetarium, children’s science lab, natural history exhibits, a veterans history museum, a technology business incubator and an IMAX movie screen.

Mayor Bob Lemon introduced the idea as the city’s next destination project because Central Texas does not have a planetarium. Council members plan to consider forming a science center board during the next council meeting scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Feb. 25 at Cedar Park Public Library, 550 Discovery Blvd.

“My original suggestion was to find someone who owns land to partner with, someone who has interest in operating a planetarium,” Lemon said. “The 4B board has a vision for a much larger project, which is a planetarium as part of a science center.”

Brian Rice, president of Cedar Park’s Community Development Corporation (4B), said the board has set aside money in this year’s budget for a site assessment, which he described as just short of a feasibility study. Members of the board plan to explore a location for the science center in the coming months.

Don Tracy, a member of Cedar Park’s Economic Development Board (4A), and Alain O’Tool, who serves on the Tourism Advisory Board, also presented ideas to the council about the science center.

“We envision the Cedar Park science center as a place that engages our imagination, nurtures our families and fosters the development of a more prosperous community,” Tracy said. “It’s a place where kids can do projects in a science lab, learn about natural history and with a lab focused on advanced technology like engineering.”

The center could incorporate a local history and veteran’s museum to teach residents about the roots of Central Texas and honor the sacrifices of military veterans, Tracy said. A partnership with Leander Independent School District and Austin Community College could foster a business incubator that helps jump-start local high technology industry.

“These are all preliminary thoughts on what this center could be for Cedar Park,” Tracy said. “This could be a community development engine that engages our families and an economic development engine that encourages our children to learn the kinds of skills needed by the businesses we want to have in our city.”

O’Toole said the science center could combine city leaders from various boards in a joint committee to come up with the best ideas for the project.

“This idea offers an opportunity to every city board and every aspect of Cedar Park government to be involved in,” she said. “This is a chance for us to all work together.”

Scott Mitchell, Place 3, said when an idea for a new project takes shape, it is important not to worry about what it could cost.

“We’ll figure a way to buy it if we find some value in it,” he said. “You take that concept out there and if you don’t get the public to buy in, it won’t go anywhere. But I think this idea is going somewhere.”

Matt Powell, Place 1, agreed. Powell works as director of foundations and community relations for Concordia University Texas.

“I would love to take this to my workplace and see if our science department would be interested in partnering,” he said. “This is fabulous—the potential here is extraordinary and it shows how Cedar Park does things that other communities can’t or won’t. It could be years away or more, but this is a great place to start.”