For new Mayor Dave Young, transparency with residents is one of the most important goals.

To that end, the council announced a new portal on the city’s website during its Tuesday work session. The portal, found at http://orem.org/transparency, will be online within the next week or so.

The link will feature several departments sharing information on everything from fees to reports.

The new Orem Transparency Portal was previewed for the City Council during the work session to gather feedback before it is rolled out for the public.

Courtesy Orem City

The mayor and council asked city staff to find a way to make it quick and easy for residents to find information about the city.

“The City of Orem believes transparency to be one of the pillars of good governance. Transparency is critical to all levels of government in promoting responsibility, maintaining accountability, and preserving the public’s trust,” said Pete Wolfley, project designer. “Rather than you having to scout the website looking for something specific, we have tried to bring “all things transparency” onto one page.”

Some of the feature highlights of the Transparency Portal, include:

• Request a Record — a quick GRAMA request form that you fill out and it goes straight to the City Recorder’s office.
• Projects Being Built — You can see all the active building permits that have been issued by the city.
• Applications Being Considered — This part of the portal shows building, zone change, etc. applications that have been submitted to the city’s Development Services Department and are currently under review.
• Budget & Financials — All of the city’s budgets, financial reports, audits, tax rates and more are available on a single page of the website.
• Utah Transparency Site — The Transparency Portal has a quick link to the Utah Transparency site where you can see the city’s expenditures as well as employee compensation.
• Studies & Surveys — All of the recent reports, studies and surveys the city has conducted are made available for review.
• Voting Record — “This is one of the features we are most excited about,” Wolfley said. “We are now creating graphical recaps of City Council meetings that show what happened in a digestible and comprehensible way. It also shows how each council member voted on each individual issue.” He added that social media reaction to the service was positive.
• Resolutions & Ordinances — This part of the portal is still currently under construction, but will eventually feature five years worth of resolutions and ordinances that the City Council has passed.

It’s important to note that the Transparency Portal is still in the draft stage and isn’t 100% ready yet.

“We have a few final touches to add that will improve the functionality and usability of the program but we’re very eager and excited to finish it and roll it out to the residents,” Wolfley said. “We’re planning a significant marketing campaign for the launch to let people know that this resource is available to them.

Wolfley added that the city is also open to feedback from residents things they would like to see included in the portal in the future. Residents are asked to text all suggestions to 801-229-7000.