The town of San Tan Valley’s new website, developed in partnership with Arizona State University, is almost ready to launch.
At its Aug. 5 meeting the San Tan Valley Town Council was presented with the nearly finished project.
The town currently has a bare-bones site hosted on the League of Arizona Cities and Towns website.
After incorporation the town needed its own standalone municipal website. Instead of hiring a vendor to create the site, staff instead partnered with ASU Next Lab, a program that connects ASU students, faculty and community partners to develop an end product.
The partnership was formed through AZ-1, a portal of resources dedicated to broadband and digital equity efforts across the state.
AZ-1 was launched in 2022 by the Maricopa County Broadband Initiative, a $34.6 million federally funded partnership between ASU, Maricopa County, Sun Corridor Network and the Institute for Digital Inclusion Acceleration. The only cost to the town is existing licensing or subscription fees.
“Throughout the project, we worked closely with town staff to understand their needs and make sure the website would be useful for both residents and town employees,” Zoshan Sharafi, an associate with AZ Next Lab, told the council. “We wanted residents to be able to find important resources quickly and without any confusion throughout the website.”
The site has consistent design, colors, layout and formatting.
“You guys just got this new big branding package, and we wanted to celebrate that. So, we brought in the logo, the color scheme, fonts, and even the favicon, which is the little icon that appears on a browser tab,” said Ciera Parkhurst, a data and visualization analyst with ASU.
The site has also been designed to work well on different devices such as personal computers, tablets and smartphones.
“San Tan Valley will continue to develop specific features and curate content over time and it will soon become the San Tan Valley website for maybe a year or so until a permanent website is built,” Parkhurst said.
Currently, town staff is working to transfer statutorily required information from the site now hosted by the Arizona League of Cities and Towns to the new site.
Residents who log onto santanvalley.gov will be directed to a page on the Arizona League of Cities and Towns that hosts San Tan Valley information. There, people can get a look at the developing site.
Once the town staff finishes its work, the santanvalley.gov URL will be an independent site.
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Janet PerezNews Editor | Queen Creek & San Tan Valley
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Meet JanetJanet Perez joined Independent Newsmedia as editor of the Queen Creek Independent and Florence Independent in 2020. She started her career in 1989 with the Gannett-owned El Paso Times. In 1992, she moved to Tempe and has worked in newspapers, magazines, radio and television. She left Arizona for three years to work at New Mexico State University and Baylor University before returning to work at Arizona State University. Missing the business, she went back to journalism in 2017.
Community: A long-time pet owner, she supports animal welfare causes.
Education: University of Texas at El Paso with a BA in journalism and a minor in political science.
Random Fact: She had a head full of random facts.
Hobbies: Reading, watching documentaries, cooking and playing with her dogs.
Keywords
queen creek, san tan valley, website, ASU, Maricopa County