NEWS INFORMATION FROM

THE OFFICE OF MAYOR STEPHEN R. REED
City of Harrisburg
King City Government Center
Harrisburg, PA 17101-1678
Telephone: 255.3040

FOR IMMEDIATE USE
18 December 2002

CITY’S OFFICIAL WEBSITE WWW.HARRISBURGCITY.COM NOW LIVE

Harrisburg, PA’Mayor Stephen R. Reed today announced that the City of Harrisburg’s official World Wide Web site at www.HarrisburgCity.com is now live and available to the general public. The new ADA accessible website provides an array of information about city government activities, and in coming months will offer online permitting, licensing, and bill payment services.

Reed said the city’s official new website has been in the planning and production stages for many months following the hiring of a full-time city Webmaster earlier this year. The site contains a wealth of information about all aspects of city government activities, ranging from general city agency descriptions to departmental annual reports, tourism brochures and information, economic development information and much more. Employment applications are now being received on-line.

The Mayor said the city’s new website will provide a greatly expanded Internet presence for Harrisburg, which previously was limited to only a few sites containing very specific information on city events and housing development. The newly created website encompasses all aspects of city government operations and provides detailed information on city events, meetings, public announcements and activities. The site will be continuously updated to ensure timely and topical public information and expanded to include new features.

The city’s new web presence cost approximately $135,000 in new staff, equipment, installation and maintenance costs. Work is now underway to network the city’s website with its overall mainframe computer system, allowing for online permitting, licensing, employment applications and bill payment.

A highlight of the site is its handicap accessibility, said the Mayor. The site was designed to provide full access to persons with visual or audio limitations, and has received the Tri-County Association for the Blind’s official approval for use by the visually-challenged. “We are very excited about our new web presence,” said the Mayor. “The World Wide Web has clearly become an integral component of our global marketplace and community, and having such a site helps expose and promote Harrisburg to the international Internet community. More and more tourism, economic development and residential housing searches, as well as online permitting and bill payment are being conducted through the internet, and Harrisburg is now well-positioned to capitalize on these growing trends.

“While an extensive amount of city information is already contained on the site, considerably more work remains to be done on all aspects of city government operations. This is and will remain a major work in progress for many years to come.”

Reed said HarrisburgCity.com is also linked into many of the city’s major tourism and education facilities, with links to affiliated websites for such local attractions as the Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts, the National Civil War Museum, the Greater Harrisburg Fire Museum, local tourism agencies and groups, and an array of educational institutions, including the Harrisburg School District, city-based charter schools, and institutions of higher learning located throughout the city.

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