The Town of Olds will move toward making more of its services available online as part of its re-branding strategy that was begun in 2011.
Town staff are moving towards allowing residents access to Geographic Information Services based on addresses and other services the town offers as part of a website redesign it will be launching in the near future. GIS allows town staff access to information related to water and sewer infrastructure, storm system infrastructure, roadways and buildings. The town is also in the process of allowing home and business owners access to their own properties' information as well as tax information on a specific address through the GIS system.
Larry Wright, the town's director of operations, said the town has been working with the Oldman River Regional Services Commission, which hosts the information town staff members use, to allow public access. Wright said the commission is currently working on ways to encrypt the information so that only property owners and town staff could have access to information on a specific address. The ORRSC is also working on making the database more resistant against hackers. Once those issues have been ironed out — town administrators aren't sure when that might be finished — the public could have access to that information through the town's website.
Coun. Harvey Walsh asked administrators at the July 8 council meeting when that information might be made public during a discussion on renewing an agreement with the ORRSC to continue to provide GIS and mapping services to the town. The ORRSC is located is southeastern Alberta.
“Phase 3 of the (promoting Olds plan) is to totally redesign our website and move to customer self-service so that people can jump on and get access to things like GIS, their utility bills and a number of the other things that we provide services for,” said Norm McInnis, the town's chief administrative officer.
The first phase of the re-branding was changing the town's logo while Phase 2 of the plan involved improving the organization's internal and external communications.
A redesign of the town's website is the third phase. Town staff have spent 2013 taking outdated information off the website, in preparation for a relaunch next year.
