It’s in the presentation
(of their Web sites)
Just about everybody’s got one. If you’ve got a teenaged child,
he or she has one. Businesses have them. Churches have them.
Web sites.
It’s in the presentation
(of their Web sites)
Just about everybody’s got one. If you’ve got a teenaged child, he or she has one. Businesses have them. Churches have them.
Web sites.
The 21st Century may have been a little tardy arriving in San Benito County, but local governmental agencies are global, via the World Wide Web.
A gander at government’s e-presence reveals much about local agencies.
The city of Hollister definitely wins on two counts: style and substance.
The site, at http://hollister.ca.gov/ contains navigation bars that make it easy to get around, photos that make Hollister look like a pretty nice place to live, school and community listings, employment opportunities, a copy of the freshly minted general plan and a pretty good calendar.
Heck, if you’re in a rush, you can even pay your utility bill online.
But what cinches the deal for Hollister is a live Web cam, depicting the city’s most ambitious undertaking – the new sewer.
Viewers can click on a small icon on the city’s home page and be taken – virtually – live to a screen that in jerky sequence (think old Charlie Chaplain films) shows hard-hatted workers working, earthmovers moving earth, cranes craning and the like. It’s enough to make any little boy – and a few little girls – dizzy with excitement and anticipation.
Over at the San Benito County Water District (www.sbcwd.com) visitors start with a soothing picture of Santa Ana Peak. But, befitting an agency populated by engineers and people dedicated to the no-nonsense business of moving water around, the site is all business.
It contains a host of information about water conservation, weather data, water management planning, current reservoir levels and employment information.
Like the system of pipes and valves it manages, the water district’s site may not be pretty, but it gets the job done.
Surfing over to the City of History (www.san-juan-bautista.ca.us) brings a unique take on the place we call home. San Juan is sometimes derided as the town that doesn’t know how, saddled as it is with limited funds, an expensive infrastructure and a small staff.
But the site tells a different story. Set on ersatz sheets of parchment, San Juan’s site invites people paying an e-visit to drop the mouse and pay an actual visit to San Juan.
Go to “Points of Interest” and visitors can download a map that marks out a walking tour passing the town’s most historic structures.
A few of the site’s pages remain “under construction,” but it conveys the sense that San Juan might be worth a trip off 101.
San Benito County (www.san-benito.ca.us) is the poor stepchild of cyberspace.
Sure, drop in on the homepage and the requisite photos of all of our icons – Pinnacles, the mission, horses and pretty views – are all there. So are employment listings, just like everybody else.
It’s got links to weather data, too. But hit a weather button and you don’t get a new browser window. You get taken off the county website.
The county’s calendar is there, too. For 2006.
To its credit the site does contain links to local newspapers, including – ahem – this one.
The home page indicates the county’s site is maintained by county staff. That explains why some areas of the site are so much more useful than others, and why they look so different. The library even offers homework help live, via the state library.
The other local government Web sites do not indicate who’s responsible for their engineering, so give the county a B-plus for effort.
Ewwwwww!
Blow the whistle on this one. For those of you who like scanning newspapers looking for police blotter items, the winner of the 2007 most bizarre report is already in. Game over.
In case you missed it, Hollister police reported a while back the discovery of a Gilroy woman in the parking lot of the Hollister Bank of America at San Benito and Third streets.
Time: around 2:30 a.m. on a Saturday.
Police were quickly able to determine that the woman appeared unable to care for herself and took her into custody on suspicion of public intoxication.
Their suspicions must have been aroused when, on this chilly morning after the night before, they noticed that she was wearing no pants. She further is reported as telling officers that she was in Gilroy.
That’s one they’ll be talking about at the academy.
“Notebook” is compiled by Pinnacle publisher Mark Paxton, with contributions from staff members as noted. Paxton’s e-mail address is
mp*****@pi**********.com
.
