EMMAUS, Pa. — Months after taking down its original website after dealing with hacking issues and unwanted links appearing on their site, Emmaus has launched its new municipal website — with many new capabilities for residents.
- The new website for Emmaus has launched, replacing the previous temporary site
- New capabilities allow for borough-wide notifications for residents who sign up, as well as reporting issues directly to the local government
- The original site was taken down after a series of hacking incidents that replaced links on the original site
The new website officially was launched April 27, replacing the temporary site the borough had been using over much of the past year.
"We're very happy with it," said Assistant Borough Manager Sara Jarrett-Eaton, who led the effort.
Jarrett-Eaton said the site's new "notify me" function is the biggest new highlight. It lets the borough make municipality-wide announcements of important information and government updates.
"You can even get so specific as to what kind of calendar event you're interested in," Jarrett-Eaton said. "You can get notifications on job postings or bid postings, so people don't have to check in on the website as frequently if they sign up with that account."
Report a concern, and more
A notification was sent out on this system for the public meeting held Monday regarding the work required to address the issue of PFAS in borough water systems.
Jarrett-Eaton said while only a few were signed up at the time, the reach of special alerts such as that only will grow as more residents know about the function and sign up.
The homepage now also has a "Report a Concern" button that takes residents to a page where they can alert the borough to code violations, roadway damage, nuisance animals and other requests or concerns.
Also on the site are links to the borough's list of ordinances, bill-paying services for utilities and forms for things such as community events and permits. It also allows for a more centralized management of agendas and minutes for public meetings.
Also on the site are links to the borough's list of ordinances, bill-paying services for utilities and forms for things such as community events and permits.
It also allows for a more centralized management of agendas and minutes for public meetings.
Other information, such as an archive of borough newsletters (including the recently released Summer 2023 issue), a page on local history and awards and recognitions can be found as well.
Months of website headache
Starting in September, borough officials found that on the old website, vulnerabilities led to links that were meant to take you to a council's zoom meeting or let you to pay your bills, instead would take you to adult dating and gambling sites.
The original site was taken down and replaced with a temporary Wix site by Jarrett-Eaton as a placeholder for this new more robust site.
"After we thought we got it fixed for, like, the third or fourth time, somebody would email me and say, 'Hey, I there's something wrong with your website, it's going to somewhere it's not supposed to.'"Emmaus Borough Manager Shane Pepe
Borough Manager Shane Pepe said the borough initially was notified in September that a breach on the website changed some links to redirect to these unwanted destinations.
Over the ensuing weeks, those working at the borough tried to scrub the links from the website. As they removed ones they found, more would come back over time, occasionally with new unwanted destinations, officials said.
"After we thought we got it fixed for, like, the third or fourth time, somebody would email me and say, 'Hey, I there's something wrong with your website, it's going to somewhere it's not supposed to,'" Pepe said.
"It's like, alright, right, scrub it again."
Different domain, more security
The site has a different domain from the prior website, moving from borough.emmaus.pa.us to emmauspa.gov
The website was developed by Civic Plus, a company specializing in municipal websites that also manages the website of Lower Macungie Township and many others.
"People go to our website when they're looking for specific information or they're wanting to know what's going on — and we want that information to be easy to find and engaging for people. We don't want you to have to search for things."Emmaus Assistant Borough Manager Sara Jarrett-Eaton
"We obviously had some challenges in getting the website moved over with ours being hacked, coming down, us losing access to that, and then having our temporary site," Jarrett-Eaton said. "So there was a lot of work.
"People go to our website when they're looking for specific information or they're wanting to know what's going on — and we want that information to be easy to find and engaging for people. We don't want you to have to search for things."
She said the security on the new site in comparison to the prior one is "incredible."
The next steps, according to the assistant borough manager, is to sit down with each department head to adjust and ensure each page on the site works for what they need while staying up to date and accurate.
