Ukiah Police Department

[MarcC]

One of the PW sites I've been working on recently:

http://www.ukiahpolice.com

This project was structured really differently from the start, in comparison to most sites I do. In our planning, we decided that the first task was just to put up the front page of the site, and then evolve it over time.

It's still evolving, but should be completely wrapped up soon. Changes are coming for the small screen views and several sections of the site. The chief has been really happy with it. He presented the site to the city council this week so I'm calling it presentable myself.

My favorite part of this has been working with another developer on additional software that uses the PW API to populate the database via email attachments and funky things like that. We're looking at hooking up a fax API too. So a big part of this for me has been the pleasure of creating not just a website, but an extension to the department's workflow that makes it easier to disseminate information.

We've had some interesting moments in working with law enforcement software providers, too. We planned on basing some of our social media involvement around a web service that would broadcast crime information to Twitter and Facebook. When the time came to hook it all up, I discovered that the features weren't working. I kept reconnecting and re-authenticating on Twitter and Facebook, but got nothing. Eventually I contacted the service provider and they said that these features were "in alpha" and "the buttons don't do anything." Cracked me right up. The features are even documented in their quick start guides!

[ryan]

Nice job Marc. This is the nicest police department site that I've seen, looks like a fun project. Next you'll have the city of Ukiah wanting you to do all the their other sites.

[Pete]

I agree with ryan on this one - maybe the City website could be re-done by you too (just followed the link at the top-right)