Back in 1995 whe
n I was first really learning how to build web sites, I was approached by Art Bolli, the late and former director of the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District to create a site that would somehow represent the organization. So, I did. It was really basic, but Art, as so often happens, had hopes of expanding the site, even providing dynamic data on water levels. However, as so often happens, no one in the organization had time to provide more information. So there it sat. For 12 years. With little change.
Finally, about a week ago, we unveiled a new site. It’s still quite simple in 
presentation. It’s not flashy, but it finally does offer a great deal of information about the water district, its services and its issues. Beyond that, we provided a Content Management System which allows the staff to update content easily. The system has a few special tools that allows the staff to gather information from site visitors and interact with them. We think it’s a great step toward transparency. Indeed, one of the great motivations for building the new site was to offer information to the public in an easy to find format and reduce the burden o the District’s small staff in answering questions. So if you want to know more about what the heck this organiztion does, visit the site.