Newport staff preview redesigned city website; internal testing next, two-day launch planned

John Fuller, the city’s communications director, told the Newport City Council at a work session that the city’s redesigned website is “probably 90% done” and will enter internal testing soon before broader external testing and a planned two-day shutdown for the final switchover.

Fuller and staff presented a preview of the new site and its subpages — including separate sub‑sites for police, library and parks and recreation — and described features designed to make municipal information and services easier to find. Fuller said the homepage will include four prominent quick‑link tiles for high‑need actions (for example, bill payments and service requests), an alerts feature for urgent notices, a streamlined contact form for contacting the council, and integrated calendars for city meetings and departmental events.

The redesign also includes a new, searchable municipal code interface (migrated from a static PDF), a fillable public‑records request form created by staff member Ally, and upgrades to department pages such as an airport page with pilot call numbers and landing‑fee information. Fuller said some imagery and content remain placeholders and will change before launch.

Why it matters: City officials said the current site can be difficult to navigate and contains outdated or duplicated information. The new site aims to reduce calls to City Hall by guiding residents quickly to the right department or external agency, make key documents easier to access, and provide mechanisms for emergency alerts such as water curtailments or earthquake (“shake”) alerts.

Testing, permissions and timeline Fuller described a two‑step testing process: internal testing with city staff, followed by external testing with community volunteers and varied browsers/settings. He estimated internal testing could be completed in about a week and said the final switchover would require “about a 2 day shutdown on our site” to move the live site.

Staff also plan to train multiple department editors so pages can be updated without an IT request. Fuller said the city expects to restrict editing rights by page or department to limit the number of people who can change content. He estimated a small number of staff — roughly six to eight people across departments plus IT and communications — will have editing access.

Accessibility, mobile and browser compatibility Councilors raised technical concerns about mobile display, accessibility and browser/firewall compatibility. Fuller said the site builder includes a mobile preview mode and automated accessibility checks available to editors, but he emphasized that external testing will be important to identify issues for users with stricter browser privacy or firewall settings. Councilors volunteered to help test the site on different browsers; staff said they will collect that feedback during the external testing period.

Content choices and public access Staff described several content decisions made for security and usability. The full staff directory was removed from the main site to reduce spam and phishing risk; the police subsite will retain its own staff directory and images by request of the police department. The police subsite will remain reachable at its existing domain (newportpolice.net) and will forward to the new subsite. Fuller said the police arrest log — a commonly viewed item on the current site — will remain available and that the police are planning an online police‑report filing feature.

Short‑term rentals and municipal code Fuller said the short‑term rentals page will include an owner listing required by code, and that the municipal code search tool the team migrated will allow deeper searches than a single PDF. Staff acknowledged some content lives on external agency sites; many pages will link out to those authoritative external resources rather than duplicating maintenance responsibilities.

Contacting councilors and calendars The new site includes a streamlined “contact the council” form that routes messages to the council; staff said the city currently plans to provide a single council contact form rather than listing individual councilors’ email addresses on the site, though councilors asked staff to return with pros and cons of making individual addresses visible. Fuller said department pages can display specific office hours and contact points to reduce misdirected calls.

Other items Fuller said the team standardized city social media handles to CityOfNewportORE for major platforms. He also noted an alert capability on the homepage that can be used for breaking items or public‑safety notices and that large documents (for example, the comprehensive plan) will be broken into sections so users can open only the parts they need.

Next steps Staff will complete remaining content and committee pages, run internal testing, open external testing to community volunteers and targeted participants, and then schedule the final migration. Fuller asked councilors and staff to provide feedback during the external testing window; a final launch date was not given at the meeting.