West Covina rolls out redesigned westcovina.gov with chatbot and GIS features

The City of West Covina on Nov. 4 showcased a redesigned municipal website (westcovina.gov) that staff said soft-launched Oct. 30 and will be progressively enhanced. City Manager Roxanne Lima and IT staff described improved mobile responsiveness, a resident account system for notifications, embedded GIS maps showing pavement rehabilitation and tree trimming zones, and an AI-driven "WC chatbot" to help residents find information faster.

"We did do a soft launch, beginning on October 30," City Manager Roxanne Lima said, describing an implementation team that included IT and public-works staff and a consultant from CivicsPlus. She said the project included staff training, creation of training videos, and steps to give department subject-matter experts ownership of their pages so information can be updated promptly. (Roxanne Lima, 01:14:14)

IT/tech staff showed the site's new features. Tech manager Will (Wilcher) Hill said the address will default to the new .gov domain and described a banner alert system, resident account creation and notification preferences, agenda and minutes access, a "report an issue" tile, GIS resource maps, and a calendar and news carousel maintained by departments. "The new website has been developed for our city staff to update it as frequently as needed," Hill said. (Wilcher Hill, demo)

Roxanne and staff demonstrated the WC chatbot. The tool searches the site and returns links to pages such as state-of-the-city materials, meeting videos and relevant news posts. "What it allows a member of the public to do is to ask a question of the chatbot or to find information and what it will do is it will take a look at our website and help the resident find the information that they are looking for located a lot quicker," Roxanne told the council. Staff said further features will roll out in the coming weeks.

Staff also highlighted interactive GIS maps that allow residents to enter an address and view pavement rehabilitation zones and the tree-trimming schedule. Councilmembers requested a few immediate tweaks, including clearer labeling of council districts on councilmember bio pages, a privacy-policy review by the city attorney to ensure compliance with state law, and an explicit business-license or "how to start a business" tab in the permits section. Staff agreed to review those items and said analytics will be reviewed 30 days after launch to tune what is highlighted on the homepage.

Speakers quoted (first reference with role/title) - Roxanne Lima, Acting City Manager (01:14:14) — introduced implementation, staff training and the CivicsPlus partnership. - Wilcher "Will" Hill, IT/technical manager (01:49:55) — demonstrated mobile-responsive layout, GIS maps and site features. - Don Ye Adams, Economic Development and Housing Manager (00:45:36) — noted the site will host Small Business Saturday information and encourage Chamber involvement.

Why it matters The site centralizes services (permit info, report-an-issue, calendar and news), aims to reduce in-person visits by enabling 24/7 online transactions, and introduces an AI chatbot to speed information retrieval. Staff emphasized accessibility compliance (Section 508 and WCAG AA) and said the site is built to facilitate departmental updates.

Provenance (selected transcript excerpts) - topicintro: block_id "1314.515", local_start 0, local_end 180, evidence_excerpt: "It is my pleasure to give a quick introduction regarding our new city website... we did do a soft launch, beginning on October 30..." - topfinish: block_id "2191.96", local_start 0, local_end 120, evidence_excerpt: "So, in 30 days, myself, Will, and Deb are gonna sit down, and we're gonna look at the back end of it and see what still needs to be adjusted."