Howard County?s new Web address is the first step to creating a more customer-friendly online resource, officials said.
“We want to make ourselves more the Grand Central Station for information and resources in the county,” said Ira Levy, the county?s new director of the Department of Technology and Communication Services.
The county?s site has moved to www.howardcountymd.gov, from its previous address of www.co.ho.md.us.
Both Web sites currently are operating, and the initial address will be operating indefinitely, said county spokesman Kevin Enright.
But the address change is just the beginning, Levy said. To make major changes to the site?s functions, Levy and his staff are making upgrades behind the scenes so it is easier to search for information.
Eventually, the site will allow residents to find all county information through the site, whether it be directly from county government, the school system or even Howard Community College, Levy said.
The upgrades are expected to change the look and feel of the current site, but Levy said he doesn?t have an exact time frame for those changes to be complete.
County officials also want to find a way to allow the County Council to control information it posts to its pages, rather than going through the public information office.
Council Member Mary Kay Sigaty, D-District 4, had expressed concerns over controlling her content.
“It?s a tool to inform people in our districts, and we should be able to not have the sense that we have to ask permission to let people know,” Sigaty said.
The county might tap someone to be a full-time webmaster to fix the site, at least temporarily, Enright said. Previously, there were “lots of people maintaining the site,” which means no consistency, he said.
The technology staff recently finished consolidating two e-mail systems which had been running parallel for years, Levy said.
“There?s more to come,” he said.
