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City previews redesigned websites, plans search bot and customer account tools
Summary
City staff showed council a staged redesign of five Richland websites, described accessibility and mobile improvements, previewed a CitiBot search assistant to be named "Cory City of Richland," and said a My Meter account app for utility customers will replace the current eCare system and launch soon.
The City of Richland presented a staged redesign of its main website and four departmental subsites and outlined plans for a search bot and an online utility account tool.
City staff said the redesign is part of the city’s strategic plan and aims to improve mobile and accessibility features, reorganize content by search patterns, and create an editorial governance process.
Holly Alexander, a city staff member, said the goal was "to align with the City's strategic plan" and to make the sites "more accessible, mobile friendly, [and] search centric." Alexander walked council through a staging site provided by vendor Granicus, and showed subsite previews for the Richland Public Library, parks and public facilities, a business/economic development site and the Benton County Emergency Services site. She said the design will meet accessibility guidelines, add alternative text for images, and improve readability.
Alexander described operational changes tied to the redesign: a governance guide from Granicus, content optimization work, an editor/reviewer workflow and a staff training program. She said 65 staff members are designated content-management users and will receive training before the launch. Alexander said the sites were cloned in December 2024 to preserve current content and that staff will update any changes before the live launch, which she said the city anticipates in Q2 2025.
On automated search, Alexander noted the city plans to deploy a CitiBot search assistant after go‑live. "Ours will be named Cory City of Richland," she said, and explained the bot will search site content and fall back to routing users to a staff contact when it cannot answer. Councilmembers asked whether the bot would create frustrating “loops” and whether answers will be curated; Alexander and other staff said the city will curate frequently asked questions, monitor bot reports and direct users to a customer-service representative when needed.
Council members asked about specific integrations and features. Alexander said the city’s new permitting system is live on the current site and will be ported to the redesign, and she confirmed the My Meter app is coming to replace the current eCare utility-billing portal so residents can create accounts and view or manage utility bills online.
Staff said Granicus is the same vendor used for the current site, which they expect to reduce the learning curve for editors. No firm launch date was given beyond the Q2 2025 target.
Additional details raised during the session included whether fire and police would have separate subsites (staff said they will have department pages within the main site template, not separate subsites), and how the bot’s AI will operate across languages and escalate complex permitting questions to the appropriate department page or a staff contact.
The city indicated it will continue quality-assurance and user-acceptance testing with Granicus, complete final design refinements, train content editors and then ask CMS users to update cloned content before going live. Staff said they will monitor bot usage reports after launch and will periodically curate FAQs to improve responses.
