Christiansburg is long-known for having a domain name for a website, without actually having much of a website (www.christiansburg.org). This didn't paint our town in a good light, whether looking at it from a customer service aspect, ensuring access to open government, or luring economic development prospects.
Sure, there's some basic tax information and department contact info, but not much else. Last year, Council member Brad Stipes basically said "enough is enough" around reasons given for not having a decent one. The town had previously budgeted for upgrades and hiring someone to develop and maintain it. So the Mayor allowed an ad-hoc committee of Stipes and a few town employees to get to work, council allocated another chunk of change and May 2008 Civic Plus was awarded the initial contract.
For whatever reasons, the ad-hoc committee wasn't always provided data as requested, and so deadlines were missed and the launch date for a revamped site got pushed back, and pushed back again.
At the Jan. 20th council meeting, the Mayor indicated the revamped site would absolutely, positively be online as of Jan. 31st. He assured citizens present at the meeting they would be impressed even if some aspects were still "under construction" and he was pretty sure the address (domain name) would remain the same.
Given that public input was never really sought for this project, that web sites are not static beasts and require some degree of attention to maintain and keep information relevant, and that the vision for what's still in development hasn't been outlined -- citizens can hold judgment until visiting the new site. The expectation right now is that "anything has to be better than what's out there today."
Going forward, council and citizens should hold the Mayor and town administrators feet to the fire for making sure this time they get the job done right. A return on tax dollars spent up to this point and community credibility about informing and engaging the public is on the line.