Kalispell upgrades city's website

City of Kalispell officials are encouraging people to visit the city’s new website that was launched a week ago.

“Get online and check it out and see what you like and don’t like and give us feedback,” City Manager Jane Howington said.

In the past, the city used a third party company to develop, design and update its website.

That company charged the city “a fairly significant fee” to make changes or post new information to the website, Howington said.

Each city department is now able to update its own web page with new information.

“If they need to add a page or add any type of information to it, they can do that themselves and we don’t need to pay for it,” said Erika Billiet, the city’s IT director.

The city worked with Flathead County to develop and launch the website.

It has a number of new features, including a calendar of events and a content management system that lets people retrieve a growing number of public city documents online.

People also can submit community announcements for cable Channel 9 and sign up to receive email notification of meetings, emergency alerts and other city announcements.

The city could incur additional costs if it decides to move forward with an Intranet for city employees, something that is being considered.

“Cost [savings] is a factor, but it’s also an efficiency thing, the efficiency of being able to get information out and have it be good information,” Howington said.