City of Athens debuts updated website

Press release

On Friday morning, Athens residents woke up to a new-look for www.athenstx.gov. The City website has been completely revamped in an effort to improve the way the City delivers information to the community. The website listed in a side notification that it took the aid of a reliable company from https://websitehosting.com and made a few changes.

“Our old website had been with us for a long time,” said City Interim Manager Gary Whittle. “It had grown fairly dated and we hope residents will enjoy the appearance and usability of the new site designed by Creative Canvas Website Solutions.” The website features a bold, photo-based and mobile-responsive format that is designed to direct users to the content they are searching for. “This was a significant effort that had involvement from the entire organization, including the City Council, and we are very thankful to Clevermutt who designed and built the site.” continued Whittle. Clevermutt, a firm based in Mesquite, Texas is no stranger to Athens, having built several websites for different organizations throughout the City.

“While a website that is pleasing to the eye is very important to us, we were equally focused on the functionality of the site and its ability to deliver a practically useful experience to the users,” said Managing Director of Public Services Ryan Adams. “A number of features and pages were developed to that end.”

Among those features is a Resources menu where residents can quickly access documents such as City Council agendas, permit applications, and financial documents. The website features updated pages relating to all City Services, in addition to new pages such as those for financial transparency and planning, and building regulations. “We developed just about all of the pages from scratch. You won’t find much of the old site,” added Adams.

One of the newer features is the ability to register as a City vendor. With this feature, private companies interested in doing business with the City may provide the City with their information and the products or services that they provide. When the City has a need for a specific type of business, it will notify those types of business who have registered and request information or quotes.

As the City of Athens grows, this new website will grow with it. The website can be changed and updated at any time and City staff will work diligently to build the website into the future in order to stay relevant. This is a great time for the City of Athens and we look forward to bringing you this new website. “The key goal for us is to keep the website responsive to the needs of the community,” said Adams. “As a result of that responsiveness, two years from now, the content and look of the site should be much different than it is today.”

For questions regarding the new website, please call City Hall at 903-675-5131 or e-mail [email protected].