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Indian River County (FL)

www.ircgov.com

If you want to see - literally - government in action, check out Florida's Indian River County website. Stretching from Vero Beach, the county seat on the Atlantic Ocean, almost to Yeehaw Junction in central Florida, Indian River County is Florida's largest producer of grapefruit and a major orange producer as well. The county's website keeps its citizens completely up to date on developments that affect their lives and the economy, and lately there have been all too many such events.

On the upper right corner of the home page is an entry point to a "gallery" of photographs showing recent damage caused by Hurricane Frances in various parts of the county. Other indications of the area's post-storm activity include:

• Information for residents on hiring contractors and avoiding contractors who are unlicensed
• Links to a hotline to report contractor price gouging
• Links to FEMA and other emergency services
• Toll-free phone numbers for insurance companies
• Information on a small business disaster workshop

Although Indian River County's coastal areas thrive on tourism, its website, with its matter-of-fact design, is strictly geared for permanent residents, and for well-informed residents at that. The home page is packed with lists of agendas and committee reports in PDF format ready for downloading.

There is no spoon feeding here. You have to dig into alphabetical lists of departments, committees and councils even to find descriptions of governmental agencies and their responsibilities. For each body, there is a description of its responsibilities and its members and/or staff, and email links to each official. It's thus hard to understand why these email contacts are not also listed on the site's main contact page, which lists only street addresses and phone numbers.

Board Meeting Audio and Video Available Online

Despite the many links to recovery information, the most prominent coverage on this website, and perhaps its most unique feature, is of the work of the Indian River Board of County Commissioners, which meets weekly to deal with a very wide range of county business. Extensive agenda packages are available in PDF format prior to each meeting, as are detailed minutes of each session.

Since January 2003, the proceedings of each meeting have been available in both audio and video form on the county's website. There are two versions: a streaming audio and video format for those who have a high-speed connection and a downloaded audio version for those with a dial-up connection.

A quick glance at any forthcoming agenda assures the reader that, despite the upheavals caused by the storm, business as usual persists with its employment contract renewals, subdivision utility easements, official proclamations, public discussions of road widening and tax burdens, and distribution of proceeds from the county fair.

The Indian River County website has undergone considerable upgrading in 2004, including faster load times, new navigational tools, adherence to accessibility guidelines, and enhancement to individual URLs for Emergency Services, Recreation Department, Utilities Department, Waste Department and the Community Development Department. All this is covered in downloadable minutes to the August 24, 2004 meeting of the County Board.