City of Abbeville now has brand new website

Abbeville has a new face, one that the city is showing to the World... Wide Web.
The city now has a brand new website set up at www.cityofabbeville.net. Councilman Brady Broussard Jr., District C., officially introduced site during Tuesday’s regular council meeting.
“It’s long overdue,” Broussard said. “The city now has a great card to welcome any interest in our city.”
This is not exactly a new site. The address has existed for years. Broussard said the new site is a 180-degree improvement.
“I think you will find this is a tremendous improvement over what we had before,” Broussard explained, “which was old, stale and static.
“We now have a dynamic website that provides a lot of information.”
Among the highlights of the site are options to pay bills, search city employment information and job openings, lists of attractions, festivals and restaurants, and a welcome message from Mayor Mark Piazza.
“You can take a virtual tour of the city,” Broussard said of another feature.
The site lists a schedule for all city meetings. It also includes minutes of past meetings.
“You can read the minutes for meetings going back to 1863,” Broussard said. “It’s very interesting.”
Contact information is available, not only for city officials, but officials with Vermilion Parish, state and federal government.
“Would you like to write a letter to the president?” Broussard asked. “You can find that information on the city website. You can find out how to contact our representative and senators in Washington. Of course you will be able to reach all of us at city hall.
“Every department in the city is represented on the website.”
To whom do you need to speak on a given topic or problem in the city? The “Who Do I Call?” feature on site can lead to that person and solution.
“It is a neat animated feature,” Broussard said. “If you have a loose dog in your yard or you have a fire hydrant leaking, it tells you who to call. There is no more having to make four or five calls to find out.
“You click on the area of need and you find out who to call.”
Broussard said there are plenty to thank in making this entire new site possible.
“I cannot begin to thank the mayor who embraced the vision I had with this,” Broussard said. “All of the staff at City Hall played a vital role. I want to thank all of them.”
As far are as maintaining the site, designed by Abbeville resident Joshua LeBlanc, Broussard said that is the easy part.
“It will not require a Web master to maintain and this will not be a costly venture,” he explained. “This a wordpress website.”
While not costly, the site will pay dividends for the city in the future.
“This is going to be wonderful for our businesses and citizens,” Broussard said. “For someone in another state who wants to invest in our city or for someone in another country who wants to visit our city, now they get a picture of what we are.
“We are putting our best image forward.”
Councilman-at-Large Francis Plaisance said that can go a long way.
“Having traveled all 50 states,” Plaisance said, “I have had countless times trying to explain to people what Abbeville is like and what we do here.
“Now with this new site, that is going to be very simple.”
Councilman Francis Touchet, Jr., agreed.
“This is going to be something that we can use to market ourselves,” Touchet said. “I cannot say enough about the efforts of all the individuals who put this together.
“I think this is going to be great.”
Piazza said he expects that to indeed be the case.
“This is certainly a tremendous economic tool,” Piazza said. “We have talked about economic development and this is certainly a good economic tool for the City of Abbeville.”