Jan. 7, 2026, 2:06 a.m. PT
Visalia city staff and CivicPlus, a Kansas-based government technology platform provider, are currently creating a new website for the city.
The goal is to launch the website publicly by mid-March, according to Allison Mackey, Visalia communications and brand manager who will also serve as the city’s webmaster. She added that “all signs point” to meeting that goal.
A new city website has been one of Visalia City Council’s main goals.
In a 2025 workshop, city council created a strategic priorities and goals. One of those goals for city staff was to select a new city website and begin the transition of the website to be completed by April 2026, Mackey said.
“Anyone who’s been on our current website can attest it is unfortunately very outdated,” she said. “Our current city website was launched in 2015, so city council directed staff that really it was time that we had to modernize the website.”
All hands on deck
All of the city’s departments have been involved in creating the new website.
“We have formed internally a city website committee, and we have representatives from all of the departments across the organization,” Mackey said. “We felt it was important that every department was represented, because every department has a little bit more of a specific need, and also information that they need to make available and easily accessible.
Mackey said this is an “all-hands-on-deck project.”
“Obviously for administration, it’s important that we’re making sure that all of the items related to the city council are easily accessible,” she said. “We’re integrating the agenda management system and all of the information regarding city council.”
The city’s engineering and building department have different needs, Mackey said.
“It’s very important for them that they have the ability to be able to host large PDFs, be able to accept files, have information posted there for code enforcement, our neighborhood preservation division, and all of the different components they work with,” she added.
Visalia Police Department also has different needs.
“We need to make sure that this current website not only lists their contact information, but also gives our police department the ability to accept anonymous crime tips, with all the appropriate technology on the back end to be able to support all of the current infrastructure they have, where folks can go online and easily report something or obtain information,” Mackey said.
What can residents expect?
Although the design of the new website is still under wraps, it will incorporate the city’s brand colors: bridge blue, valley oak green, plaza green, downtown gold and overland orange.
It will also meet the federal standards for ADA accessibility and include new features.
“Our new website will have a new service request system called SeeClickFix, which is much more robust than our current system,” Mackey said. “For the first time, citizens or really anyone who’s in Visalia, maybe visiting Visalia, if they see a pothole, if they see graffiti, if they see an abandoned vehicle, they will be able to go to the city website.
“They will be able to click ‘report,’” she said. “It will take them to the SeeClickFix platform, and they’ll be able to report that pothole, that graffiti, that street sign that has unfortunately fallen over for some reason.”
The service request is then delivered to a city staff person.
“We’ll continue to follow the same process that we do currently, but this way people can report things much, much easier,” Mackey said. “They’ll be able to attach photos. They’ll be able to add additional information.”
There will also be a new public records request management system.
“For the first time ever, folks will be able to go onto the city website, enter in a little bit of information and say, ‘This is the information I’m requesting,'” Mackey said. “That will be delivered directly to a staff person, and the staff person will then start the process of fulfilling that request.”
The website will also help promote the city.
“It’s going to modernize our digital presence,” she said. “Social media is huge for us right now. It will really enhance the city’s overall presence just that it will be a technologically up-to-date, user-friendly website.
“It’s going to increase folks’ ability to access services, a tool for them to be able to access information and use regularly, whether it’s our events calendar or finding out what the next council corner is, or registering for parks and recreation classes,” she said. “It can also be a tool and economic development driver because it will host information about the importance of Visalia here in our region, as a growing city here in the Central Valley.”
With more than 10,000 local governments using their products, including the cities of Hanford, Bakersfield, Kingsburg, and Modesto, CivicPlus is considered a leader in government websites.
The total implementation costs for its web services for the first year will be $74,805, which includes a promotional discount of $47,726. Maintenance costs will be $114,506 for the second year, increasing by about 5% a year for each of the next three years.
