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Simsbury previews redesigned town website; staff aim for public launch after beta fixes
Summary
Town staff and the interim technology director previewed a CivicPlus redesign of the Simsbury website, summarized public beta feedback and an issues spreadsheet, and set an anticipated go‑live within about a month while continuing ADA/508 accessibility fixes and search indexing post‑launch.
Interim technology staff (Brett/Sean) and the town manager previewed the municipality’s new CivicPlus website, described how public and department feedback shaped the design, and outlined remaining steps before full launch.
Staff said they collected public submissions through a feedback form and compiled items into a color‑coded spreadsheet that tracks resolved and outstanding issues. The changes shown include replacing the homepage background with town‑submitted photography, simplifying links to agendas and minutes, reorganizing departments and boards menus, and replacing exposed email addresses with contact forms to reduce spam.
The town emphasized two remaining technical points: (1) accessibility compliance (508/ADA) items remain under review with the vendor; and (2) the website’s search index cannot be enabled until the site goes live because pre‑indexing would surface erroneous test pages. Staff anticipates the full rollout in roughly a month, with ongoing small fixes after launch.
First Selectman and the town manager said the test site was opened broadly to the public for comment and that departments will continue to update content after launch; the town will maintain the legacy site content in parallel until the new site stabilizes.
