While Council Members are submitting their wish list for add-backs to the City Budget, I would like to join in with my own request -- some funding for an overhauled NRPD web site.

There are six cities in Westchester County. They all have public web sites, some are better than others. NRPD's web site is toward the lower end of the spectrum. It cannot be improved by tweaking; the department needs an entirely new site built from scratch. The City was able to get a vastly improved web site after Kathy Gilwit came up with some grant money. Perhaps the same can be done for NRPD.

We have plenty of people in New Rochelle who know about good communications, web design and graphics. I am hoping a few of our resident experts can take some real time to look through the six police web sites and make feature and design recommendations.

Mount Vernon
New Rochelle
Peekskill
Rye
White Plains
Yonkers

I did some searching on the web and found a few "best of" sites that get mentioned regularly as being good police department sites. Obviously, New Rochelle does not have the budget of a major city but it is useful to look at the best of the biggest to get ideas on what we might have here.

Milwaukee PD
Philadelphia PD
Thames Valley (UK)
Greater Manchester Police (UK)

One common element to the best police department web sites is their news component. The sites are not just a place to get crime statistics and sex offender lists. They are active news sites with news of prominent arrests, most wanted lists, they are easy to navigate and make use of social media.