Want to see the election ballot before you step into the voting booth? How about obtaining a copy of a marriage license–or divorce–application without making the trek to Waukegan?
Need to know whether a road construction project will block your trek to work? Or how about tracking down your descendants who first settled in the area?
It’s all possible, thanks to what Lake County officials are labeling “government of the future.”
Lake County established its virtual government center less than two years ago on the Internet (www.co.lake.il.us), and it has expanded to become one of the largest sites of its kind in the Midwest. It already has been honored by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., for its comprehensive nature and user-friendliness. Pretty impressive credentials for something that didn’t exist before March 1996.
“It’s been a real team effort, a real cooperative effort among the departments of government here in Lake County,” said Anne O’Connell, 36, who as head of the communications section of the Department of Management Services oversees the Web site. “Since we started this, the various branches and departments have really gotten involved in helping to maintain the quality and get more and more information on the page.”
Because of the location of the county seat in Waukegan–sometimes upwards of a 45-minute drive from some southwestern locations in the county–the idea of being able to locate information or contact a department official through a home computer seemed a worthwhile priority.
The concept of starting a Web site for the county began in December 1995, and three months later the page was up and running on the Internet. That was just in time for the March 1996 primaries, which served as a springboard for resident usage of the system.
“I believe we were the first in the state to do it, although some friends I have in Kane County say they were doing it simultaneously,” said Lake County Clerk Willard Helander. “When the system came up for that primary, we could see the broad possibilities it had for the public who wanted to follow the races that night.”
Where in the past, local and countywide election results often weren’t easily available to the public until the next day, and in some cases later than that, residents with the necessary computer equipment could log on to the site and get nearly instant election returns as the night wore on. As a result, the clerk’s section has become one of the most popular on the Lake County site.
“I don’t know if the results were instantaneous, but they were very quick; we were able to update them every 5 to 10 minutes on all of the races,” explained Marilyn Fettinger, the technical supervisor for the page and an employee in the Department of Management Services. “But we were able to keep up with results fairly quickly, and from that first primary right through the next four elections it has become one of our most popular sites.
“We’ve come a long way in a short time. When I first came into office in December 1994, we had one old computer, and word processing was back in the ’50s,” she said. “It was terribly inefficient. What this computer technology and the Web site provide is not only a better way of getting information but a real way to embrace what’s available to us to provide to residents and taxpayers. It is also saving us money by cutting down on overtime, because people can have their questions answered by logging on to the Web page rather than calling us directly.”
The technology goes beyond just finding out how a particular race is progressing. Helander explained that the Web site allows residents to see how many votes of the total registered voters were cast by precinct, in effect allowing users the opportunity to become instant election analysts “just like the networks.”
“I knew of the impact of the Web site from that first election night in March 1996. Normally our workers are busy through the night right up until around 5 a.m. from people who are calling our office, wanting to know how a particular race is faring. Our staff would be exhausted,” she recalled. “When the site was up and running, we could tell by the fewer number of calls that people with laptops and home computers were logging on and getting the information themselves.”
But the Web site is more than election results. The table of contents, outlining the available services that can be used for the county, is more than 10 pages long. And in an average month, there are 60,000 to 70,000 “hits,” or visits. Among the more interesting titles on the Web site are:
– Current and future road construction projects on Lake County roads.
– Potential county projects that are up for bid for companies.
– Up-to-date information on real estate taxes
– Minutes of all county board meetings for the last two years
– Municipal maps of nearly every city and township within Lake County
– The latest job announcements and employment opportunities within the county.
– Internship possibilities for county government.
With all of the potential on the Lake County information superhighway, there are potential detours. Some government and business Web sites have started out with great expectations only to turn off potential users with needless clutter and outdated information.
“We were determined from the very first that we weren’t going to let that happen to our site,” said O’Connell, who lives in Zion and previously worked for the City of Highland Park. “We maintained a policy within our department for the entire county that we were going to make the pages easy to use and also to update them as often as possible. Some of the sites, particularly those with phone numbers and information that isn’t going to change much, aren’t as much of a problem as those we want to keep updated on a regular basis.”
The ease of use and quick response of the site impressed Sharon Miller, an account representative for Henderson Co., a Chicago-based graphic arts support company that specializes in developing and programming commercial Web sites.
“It’s an impressive site,” Miller noted. “I was particularly impressed with how fast it loaded, which is always a key, but it was very, very thorough and graphically pleasing for its purpose.”
Miller added that the site was “easy to navigate” and that the home page was both graphically interesting and informative.
“They did a smart thing, putting the photos on the home page and not on all of the links, which can often slow the process down,” Miller said. “Considering the amount of information available–and the amount of additional information they have at their hands–they’ve done a very, very good job of making it user-friendly, which is, after all, very important. What we try to do is make it as interesting and informative as possible but easy enough where people will use the site. They’ve done that.”
This is all done without any full-time staff dedicated solely to maintaining and expanding the page. O’Connell and Fettinger have other responsibilities besides the government Web page and rely heavily on the individual departments to provide information for their particular place on the Web page. As would be expected, interest in the site varies from one department to another.
“Some embraced the notion from the very start; others saw another department getting involved and wanted to join, and the thing snowballed,” O’Connell said. “Others are still waiting to come on board, although in some cases, it isn’t a matter of interest as much as it is finding the time to provide us with the information we need.”
“I would say there was a little bit of reluctance from some departments when we first got started,” Fettinger added. “It wasn’t a question of money, actually; we aren’t spending much except for the cost to the server that puts the page on the Internet. Mostly it has been a matter of time for those contributing.”
Fettinger, who has worked in technical services for 20 years with the county, said the amount of computer and writing expertise also varies from one department to another.
“All of the departments are responsible for the content. What we do is structure and put it on the page,” Fettinger explained. “Some of the departments are more advanced as to their knowledge of computers and can submit the material to us in a form where it’s nearly ready to go on the page with little extra work.”
The Management Services Department also is responsible for making sure there isn’t conflicting information on the site. If one agency says road construction will go on for another two weeks and another says it is already done, O’Connell’s staff checks out the information to see which is correct.
It all seems to be working. The county submitted its Web site to the computer awards competition held by the Smithsonian Institution and was selected as one of the top pages in the country. O’Connell said the site, which also features photographs of news events involving county government taken by staff photographers, also has won other awards from the National Association of County Information Officers.
What has Lake County officials excited is the seemingly limitless areas of expansion that the virtual county government site can afford its residents in future years.
“Remember, we’ve had the site going less than two years, and there are many more applications that can be used. It’s going to be the future of government services,” Fettinger predicted.
Helander sees immediate applications for the coming primary and general elections in 1998.
“For the March elections, say you don’t know your polling place. If you know what precinct you’re in, you’re going to be able to find the polling place and how to get there,” Helander said. “We’re also coming up with a way if you don’t know your precinct to get that information.”
E-mail addresses of nearly every government official also will be provided for those who want to contact–or complain directly to–a particular agency without the headache of being put on hold on the telephone or driving to county government headquarters in Waukegan.
In addition, the site has a page that allows users to connect to separate city pages within the county.
“For example, if you live in Highland Park and want to log on directly to their page and what they have to offer, you can do so when you call up our site and go to the links page on the other World Wide Web icon,” O’Connell explained.
Helander added that scholars and family members wanting to look up genealogical records will be able to use the Web site to track down family histories of residents in Lake County dating to the 19th Century.
Also, O’Connell said, the site will have law enforcement data from the sheriff’s department, with some of the information just recently put on line. Jury duty information, always a sensitive issue for county residents, may follow in the coming months.
“We’re continually looking at ways to expand the content of the Web site and want input from the public,” she said. “It has limitless applications.”
