We’ve moo’d before about the town’s lack of good planning information on its web site. If you’ll recall, the Kaplan report on the town’s planning process recommended that a good website or newsletter be developed to help residents navigate the system.
We’re still waiting.
Looking around at the websites of other cities and towns in the county and the grass is really greener. Sure, a few of them are like our Town and only have the agendas and minutes for their Council and Planning Commission, but most of them provide a whole wealth of knowledge that visitors to the Town Of Woodside site just don’t get.
Adding all that information to the website could even have benefits! If it was easy for people to find information on the web, they wouldn’t have to make so many requests of the town staff. That way, the staff wouldn’t need to spend so much of their time faxing and mailing basic information to Town residents.
Even what they do offer is often times not functioning; take for example their Research Council Documents pages which has had the following message for the last several months! “The Research Council Documents page will be unavailable temporarily because of maintenance. On-line document search tools are available at Town Hall”.
Below, we’ve listed other sites from around the county and what you can find there. We hope that this will be an inspiration to our Town to provide more easily accessible information.
Those marked with * are the cities with staff reports, agendas and minutes.
Atherton - has staff reports, agendas and minutes for all major departments. Very good website. *
http://www.ci.atherton.ca.us/
Belmont — has staff reports, agendas and minutes for all major departments.*
http://www.belmont.gov/index.asp
Burlingame — has agendas and minutes for all major departments. Very good website.
http://www.burlingame.org/
Colma — very little information.
http://www.colma.ca.gov/
Daly City - Has agendas for all major departments.
http://www.ci.daly-city.ca.us/
East Palo Alto - has agendas and minutes for all major departments.
http://www.ci.east-palo-alto.ca.us/welcome.html
Foster City - has agendas and minutes for all major departments.
http://www.fostercity.org/
Hillsborough — has staff reports, agendas and minutes for all major departments. Very good website.*
http://www.hillsborough.net/
Half Moon Bay - has agendas for City Council and Planning Commission and minutes for City Council only.
http://www.half-moon-bay.ca.us/
Menlo Park - has staff reports, agendas and minutes for all major departments. Very good website.*
http://www.menlopark.org
Millbrae - has agendas for City Council and advanced permit center.
http://www.ci.millbrae.ca.us/millbraehp.html
Pacifica — Has staff report and agendas for all major departments.*
http://www.ci.pacifica.ca.us/
Portola Valley - has agendas and minutes for all major departments.
http://www.portolavalley.net/building/index.shtml
Redwood City - has staff reports, agendas and minutes for all major departments. Very good website. *
http://www.redwoodcity.org/index.asp
San Bruno — has staff reports, agendas and minutes for all major departments.*
http://sanbruno.ca.gov/
San Carlos - has agendas and minutes for all major departments. Very good website.
http://www.cityofsancarlos.org/default.asp
San Mateo - has agendas and minutes for all major departments.
http://www.ci.sanmateo.ca.us/index.php
South San Francisco — has staff reports, agendas and minutes for all major departments.*
http://www.ci.ssf.ca.us/default.asp
