Progress Continues on Township Website Redesign

With the design of the township's new website roughly 90 percent complete, officials and programmers are deep into the painstaking process of uploading data, according to Committeeman Don Brauckmann.

He said the township is using Monmouth University's recent study into the effectiveness of municipal websites—in which Cinnaminson was ranked in the bottom 5 percent out of 540 sites evaluated—as a guideline.

"We're really following the Monmouth study and following best practices of what should be included," said Brauckmann. "We're really trying to make a website that when people want to find out about Cinnaminson, it's all-encompassing ... It requires a lot of data upload, which is time-consuming."

Township committee awarded a contract for the website redesign to Cinnaminson-based Networks Plus for only $4,500, which was half the price of the next lowest quote the township received, according to administrator Frank Locantore. 

In addition to improved aesthetics and design, the new website will have a number of features absent from the existing one: the ability to post videos from committee meetings, online portals to pay municipal bills and links to other sites (i.e. sports clubs).

"You're trying to market your town, and your website should be a great marketing tool," said Brauckmann.

There's no firm timeline in place, but he said he'd like the redesign to be complete by the end of the summer. 

Networks Plus also designed and supports the municipal websites for Palmyra and Mansfield Township, which are ranked 102 and 166, respectively, in the Monmouth study. The company also handles IT for the Cinnaminson Police Department, and has designed websites for a number of local businesses.

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