Increase Awareness of the Website - 3CMA

City of Scappoose 33568 E. Columbia Ave., Scappoose, OR 97056 503-543-7146 http://www.ci.scappoose.or.us/

Problem/Opportunity Statement:

The City of Scappoose, Oregon opted to pursue a redesign of their website

(http://www.ci.scappoose.or.us/) following an Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) expansion of 378 acres.

This provided the city with one of the largest undeveloped industrial sites in the Portland region and

offered an amazing opportunity for economic development.

In order to capitalize on this opportunity, the city needed to ensure that information was immediately

available and accessible to the public to assist with development of the land. The city’s original site was

not user-friendly for staff, easy to navigate or intuitive for citizens, and it did not contain any content

dedicated to economic development. Additionally, the website did not support newsletter subscriptions,

images, or video content.

Intended Goals or Outcomes

Our goals for the website were to:

1. Increase Awareness of the Website and Local News

2. Promote Economic Development

3. Reduce the City’s Carbon Footprint

Increase Awareness of the Website and Local News

The previous website was difficult for citizens to maneuver and, therefore, there was little activity on

the website and no subscribers to the local newsletters. Staff were responsible for regularly updating

the website with the latest news and notices, but it was frustrating for staff since the design was faulty

and was not user-friendly. Most citizens did not use the website to track local events so activities such as

meetings or contests went unattended.

The city also promotes itself as “A place to live, play, and work”, but the unstylish home page was a

deterrence for any potential citizens. Additionally, the sidebar hosted an overabundance of information

for the “Point and Pay” payment portal that was confusing for citizens and had a low adoption rate.

Promote Economic Development

Following the considerable Urban Growth Boundary expansion, the city recognized that an updated

website could fulfill a vital role in supporting local economic development. This could be accomplished

not only by highlighting the new industrial site, but also by increasing awareness of the Scappoose

Airpark and other large industrial properties. Finally, the updated website would promote job creation

and retention for local businesses, and new business investment opportunities within the community.

http://www.ci.scappoose.or.us/



This was important for the municipality to attract long-term residents and to promote local employment

and businesses within the city.

To assist with the development of the materials used for the website, the city employed its recently

founded Economic Development Committee to aid in the selection of content for the website. The

updated site features a host of different business development topics from starting and operating a

business in Scappoose, state and local incentives, workforce training, and a business directory.

Decrease the Carbon Footprint

Scappoose emphasizes the importance of creating new businesses within the city. The idea behind

supporting local job growth potential meant that the city could reduce the number of residents

commuting into Portland and therefore reduce carbon emissions. Currently, 92% of Scappoose residents

commute to Portland for employment. Increasing the number of local, family wage jobs, would take

commuters off the road, thus reducing the community’s carbon emissions.

Prior to the release of the newest site, the City of Scappoose did not have an option for citizens to

subscribe to the online newsletter. Instead, the newsletter was included with city water bills. However,

this posed an issue for anyone living outside of the city limits and not receiving city services. City Hall

staff often fielded complaints from individuals that felt left out of the community. If they wanted to

receive an emailed copy of the newsletter, it was the responsibility of a staff member to use their

personal email account and its contact list to manually send out to each citizen a virtual version of the

newsletter.

Brief Entry Description:

In September 2016, the City of Scappoose launched a redesigned version of its website,

http://www.ci.scappoose.or.us/, through vendor Municode. The new site was designed to capitalize on

the unique opportunity presented by a recent Urban Growth Boundary expansion of 378 acres, which

provided the city with one of the largest undeveloped industrial sites in the Portland region. The city’s

goals were to increase awareness of the site and local news, promote economic development and

reduce the city’s carbon footprint.

Documentation of Achievement:

In addition to easier navigation, it is simple for any staff member, not just the webmaster, to update

meetings and minutes on the calendar. This is invaluable to the municipality because it reinforces the

motivation for staff to keep the website up-to-date with the most recent information and it encourages

citizen participation. Due to the last website being entirely out-of-date, there were no analytics to trace

prior to release of the new website that came standard equipped with Google Analytics tracking.




The updated site features a host of different business development topics from starting and operating a

business in Scappoose, state and local incentives, workforce training, and a business directory among

others. The adoption rate for

the website is a substantial

36% of the population and of

those citizens that are using

the website, 51% are new

users. A sizable portion of

those using the website are

new which assumes that the

36% will continue to increase

over time.

The city’s redesigned website

promotes a higher adoption rate for the online payment portal due to its professional and sleek look.

With a higher adoption rate, the city noticed a lowered demand for paper statements since more

citizens enroll in paperless billing.

The updated website features a section devoted entirely to economic development labeled “Doing

Business.” Within this tab, there are submenus with information regarding available industrial and

commercial lands, local and state incentives to locating a business within Scappoose, business and

technical resources, workforce training and recruitment, a PDF brochure on starting and operating a

business in Scappoose, a local business directory, and information on the Economic Development

Committee. The improved website houses this information in a way that is accessible to citizens who

may not understand how local government is organized. Also, the website provides a platform that staff

can easily update regularly which enhances government transparency.

One of the focus points of the submenu labeled “brochure” is exponentially more efficient for the

municipality. Previously, the city posted this brochure around town hall for citizens to use as a reference

tool if they had any questions or wanted more information for operating a business in Scappoose. While

physical copies are still posted around City Hall, citizens now have the convenience of accessing a PDF

version of the brochure directly on the website.

As seen in the image below taken from the website’s Google Analytics page, the most popular pages are

often regarding building or planning. As the focus continues to increase on these pages, the city will

begin to see business growth expansion over time.


http://www.ci.scappoose.or.us/ed/page/starting-and-operating-business-scappoose-brochure


Budget and Use of Outside Resources

To cover the costs associated with the re-design of the website, the city allocated $5,000, provided staff

hours, and was awarded the Intergovernmental Partnership Program Grant (IPP Grant) through the Port

of St. Helens for $18,000.00. The city hired Municode through the public contacting process (RFP) and

began working on the site May 2nd, 2016. The site was officially launched September 30th, 2016.


Supporting Materials:

Before – Top of Home Page


Before – Bottom of Home Page

After Entire Homepage:


After: Entire Homepage with ‘Doing Business’ Mega Menu

After: Economic Development Committee - Top


After: Economic Development Committee - Bottom

Before: Planning Department Top


Before: Planning Department Bottom


Mobile Content

Mobile Homepage Top Mobile Homepage Middle


Mobile Homepage Bottom


Mobile Menu Mobile Menu Expanded View


Search Engine and Filter Feature

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Increase Awareness of the Website - 3CMA