In today’s world, being able to access information we want on our timeline is critical. For our residents, businesses and visitors, the main place that happens is on our website. This is our main communication portal to the community and plays a crucial role in the City’s success and in building confidence about an open and transparent government. 

That’s why I’m excited to announce that we have launched a new version of our website, www.meridiancity.org. We have created a clean, modern design and improved site navigation to help our residents find exactly what they’re looking for and better represent who we are as a City. It includes updated, insightful content to help you find out more about city services and what we can do to help you. With over 30,000 people accessing our website each month, I want the community to have the best experience possible when engaging with the City online. 

The new version of the website goes hand-in-hand with our Strategic Plans focus on Government Excellence. I want us to provide increased accessibility and transparency to government information at all levels. This empowers residents to make informed decisions and utilize their voices, and this new website helps achieve this goal. It features improvements to ADA compliance, language access, and general usability. It includes an automatic translation feature for more than 100 languages, reflecting the City’s commitment to accessibility for our entire community. Our new website features many visual aids too, to help bring the feel of daily business to the online experience. All images on the new website also include alternative text for blind and visually-impaired residents, ensuring all can access this resource. We want a website that works for all. 

An additional item to note is that the website’s sitemap is organized to reflect the analytics of users. Meaning it prominently features many of the City’s most popular searches, such as utility billing, job opportunities, passports, and trash and recycling information. The new website allows constituents to easily obtain public meeting information, agendas, and minutes, and find information on City news and events more rapidly than before. It also allows departments to provide timely updates that will benefit residents with the most up-to-date information. We have the website broken up into many categories for our residents, business owners, and community partners, and ready for each target audience to find the information they need to continue on with their day.   

As users go about their day, many enhancements were also made to allow for better navigation via mobile devices. More than half of all users now access our site from their cell phones and tablets. Keeping this in mind throughout the build of the website has helped provide the end-user with a positive experience, while expanding the user’s knowledge and capabilities in a more engaging format.   

I want to thank our employees who put together this redesign. We are blessed at the City to have an outstanding group of public servants, and the team that built this new site are another shining example of Team Meridian.  And while the new version is launched, they want to know what you think. It’s the same URL as before and you can share your feedback with us at communications@meridiancity.org. We will take the feedback we receive and continue to regularly update to better serve our users.   

In the end, I hope our residents, businesses and visitors are able to better utilize this critical connection to the City as we grow our goal of being open and transparent as your local government.