EDENTON -- The Town of Edenton is thrilled to share its new website redesign with the public! Boasting countless new features, a huge amount of content and pages, and a more eye-catching and pleasing design for readability, this new site was a labor of love for the community over eight months.
While the URL "townofedenton.com" remains the same, our hyperlinks are no longer hundreds of characters long! Most of our pages run on short, easy-to-read URLs. For example, to visit the Tree Committee landing page, just type "townofedenton.com/trees," or "townofedenton.com/tree-committee." We hope this will save residents and visitors time and frustration. We will, however, be moving to a townofedentonNC.GOV link after the new year, and will announce when this happens. This is to remain concurrent with government security measures and ensure legitimacy for the town's website.
We also have new online forms! Trash bin and recycle bin forms, as well as budget billing and park use forms are now online (as well as hard copy)! These online forms will be emailed directly to who they need to go to here at Town Hall, hopefully streamlining the process and making things much easier. For the trash bin purchase request form, however, a fee still applies, and will be charged to a customer's utility bill.
Featuring on our home page is a public records request portal, which allows residents and visitors to submit requests for public records quickly and easily without getting bogged down in email threads or phone calls. The record request system goes directly to the town manager's office so that the records can be requested from the state or obtained here, depending on the status of the item.
The photos on the homepage of the new website are beautiful, aren't they? We are proud to share that these photos were sourced locally by area photographers, used with their permission. We wanted to keep a consistent, local feel to our new site, while allowing our wonderful community of artists and photographers to shine.
At the top of the new page, under the "Residents" tab, is a plethora of information, helpful links, and resources that residents and visitors alike can take advantage of. Whether it's an online link to the DMV or to obtain a hunting or fishing license, or whether it is getting tourism information or a link to social services' website, we have it all in one consolidated place!
One of our favorite new features is the addition of a municipal calendar, at the bottom of the website. This will allow us to share changes to waste pickup for holidays, town council meeting dates, committee meeting dates, and anything municipal-related that could affect you. Edenton-Chowan's community calendar can still be found at edentonthisweek.com as normal, as well as under our "Residents" tab.
"Nearly a year in the making, this new site was born out of a long-standing need for a renovation to our digital footprint," said Tyler Newman, Public Information Officer. "Many of our community partners have renovated their websites this year as well, including Chowan County, the Edenton-Chowan Chamber of Commerce, Destination Downtown Edenton and Visit Edenton. It was about time we joined the party."
Town staff also hopes to debut a new online 311 reporting tool, called SeeClickFix, which will allow residents and visitors to report issues to Public Works online via map, or to report code enforcement violations to the Town Planner. Emergencies such as water leaks, sewer leaks, water on/off requests will not be accepted via this online portal. We hope to unveil this within the coming month.
We understand that a new website may take some getting used to. We have to get used to it too! However, in the long run, we hope this new website overhaul will better serve our residents and visitors, remain a pillar of communication and transparency for years to come, and better connect folks to the resources they need. For any questions about the website, contact the Public Information Office at (252) 482-2155 extension 535.