Aurora launches new city government website

The city of Aurora recently launched an overhauled version of its website, which is designed to help connect residents with city government, services and more.

The newly-redesigned city government website, which was launched on Feb. 18, features four main navigational categories at the top of the homepage: “City Services,” “Recreation and Amenities,” “Property and Business” and “Government and Engagement.” From these categories, dropdown menus appear that link to webpages related to each category.

Also on the homepage are buttons linking directly to city webpages about topics such as watching City Council meetings or bidding on a city contract, along with a news and event section. A search bar is also available on the homepage.

“Aurora’s new website is user-friendly, convenient and ready to serve you,” Mayor Richard Irvin said in a “virtual ribbon cutting” video highlighting the new website and its features.

In addition to the main city website, the redesign also created three sub-sites: one for public safety, one for Phillips Park Zoo and one for Aurora Animal Care and Control. The public safety sub-site is shared by Aurora’s police, fire and emergency management departments.

The redesigned website also has a new address and can be found at www.aurora.il.us.

When using a search engine like Google or Bing to find Aurora city government webpages, some results linking to the old website address may lead to a “page not found” error message on the new website.

As of Friday, some of these webpages appeared to be available on the redesigned site if located through the website’s homepage rather than through a search engine or by clicking on search results with the new website address.

But, while the new website includes a city news section, past civic news alerts from before the website redesign did not appear to be available.

The city government website’s redesign has been a years-long process, first publicly beginning in 2020 when the city used a third party to find companies to do the job, but then the effort was put on hold during the pandemic, according to past reporting.

In 2022, the Aurora City Council approved a roughly $600,000 contract with Chicago-based CityBase, Inc., to redesign the website. City officials previously said they wanted a website that would allow people to do everything they could do in person at City Hall, but also one that would show off the city for people or businesses that may want to move to the city.

After city officials decided they were not getting the value they should out of the contract with CityBase, the Aurora City Council in November 2023 approved a $584,090 contract with Denver-based Granicus to replace it, past reporting shows. Aurora had already been using web services by Granicus such as Legistar and Gov Q&A.

The website redesign project was expected to take between 14 and 18 months, officials previously said, and a recent city news release about the new website said it was completed ahead of schedule.

rsmith@chicagotribune.com