Barrington steps up information sharing

A complete overhaul of Barrington's website last weekend was just the first step in a plan to improve village communications.

In fact, one of the village's models for its evolving communications is Barrington Community Unit School District 220, which already aggressively uses e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to share breaking news in a timely manner with community members who sign up.

Village board members on Monday discussed both the recently redesigned barrington-il.gov and further recommendations for communications improvement made by consultant and Barrington resident Patty Dowd Schmitz.

Dowd Schmitz was hired at the beginning of the year to help revamp the village's communications and visual identity. But as far as the website goes, she said she only pulled together a project the village itself already had started.

She said the website was the perfect place to start - it's the most common place both residents and anyone considering moving to the village might visit to learn more.

Along with the website revamp comes a coordinated new look for the village newsletter, informational water-bill inserts and any new village banners.

But the biggest potential area of improvement the village is considering is its use of cable access Channel 4.

Dowd Schmitz said this channel - conveniently located near the top of the dial - could be much more than the series of informational slides and recorded village board meetings it currently is.

Trustee Steve Miller said probably half of village residents don't have access to the cable channel, while Trustee Beth Raseman warned some senior residents could be left behind by relying too heavily on the Internet for village communications.

But as many seniors do get Channel 4, they could watch village videos there while younger people with only Internet access could watch the same videos on YouTube, Dowd Schmitz suggested.