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Town Website Modernization for Accessibility, Public Information & Ongoing Support

A modern, accessible website for a small Vermont town with board publishing workflows, searchable public documents, online forms, and long-term support.

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Overview

Key Metrics & Impact

This case is based on a small incorporated Vermont town with approximately 2,000 residents, a Select Board governance model, six full-time town office staff members, and multiple volunteer boards and commissions. The project included redesigning the information architecture, migrating 47 pages and roughly 280 PDF documents, implementing a WordPress-based multi-role permissions model, launching online forms, enabling PDF-aware site search, and providing hosting, security, backups, monitoring, training, and ongoing support.

  • Migrated 47 pages and around 280 PDF documents from the legacy website.

  • Trained 3 town staff members and 6 volunteer content managers to manage the site independently.

  • Reached Lighthouse scores of 94 Performance, 100 Accessibility, 100 Best Practices, and 98 SEO.

  • Achieved 99.98% uptime in 2025.

  • Enabled 340 online zoning permit applications in 2025, compared with zero online applications in 2023.

Solutions
Challenges
Use Cases
Key Metrics & Impact
01

Problem

The town's previous website was built in 2015 on an outdated proprietary SaaS platform. It was not mobile responsive, failed key accessibility requirements, and made content updates difficult for both staff and volunteers. Because the town had no in-house IT team, the website also needed to be easy to manage without relying on developers for routine publishing.

The municipality needed a better digital foundation for public information, board communications, document publishing, and online service access, while still matching the realities of a small-town operating model with limited internal resources.

Problem
02

Challenge

The project needed to redesign the information architecture for a small town government, migrate pages and a large PDF archive, implement role-based permissions for staff and volunteers, support online forms for zoning permits, records requests, and event submissions, add site-wide search with PDF indexing, provide secure hosting, monitoring, backups, and support, and align the publishing model with Vermont Open Meeting Law workflows.

There were also practical constraints. Volunteer board members needed a simplified editing experience, while the Town Clerk still needed final moderation and publication control. Accessibility could not be treated as a launch-only checkbox — it had to be part of the ongoing operating model.

Challenge

Solution

Empowering Town Operations with a Tailored WordPress Platform

A custom WordPress build with structured board workflows, reusable templates, online forms, moderated calendar, PDF-indexed search, and full compliance support – all wrapped in a managed hosting and ongoing care model.

Product Highlights

    • WordPress municipal platform with custom templates for boards and commissions.

    • Role-based editing model for town staff, board chairs, contributors, and calendar submitters.

    • Open Meeting Law-ready publishing workflow for agendas, minutes, and recordings.

    • Search with PDF indexing for public documents.

    • Online forms for zoning permits, records requests, and event submissions.

    • Ongoing hosting, backups, monitoring, and SLA-based support (see Web Development for how Plavno structures long-term site support).

User Flows

    • Publish Board Meetings: Board volunteers upload agenda materials through a simplified interface, and the Town Clerk reviews and publishes final meeting content with the required compliance fields.

    • Submit Town Forms: Residents use online forms for zoning permits, records requests, and local event submissions instead of paper-only workflows.

    • Search Public Information: Visitors search across both web pages and PDF documents from one site-wide search experience.

    • Manage Content by Role: Town staff and volunteer editors maintain only the sections they are responsible for, without receiving full administrative access.

Experience & Scalability

    • Designed for a small Vermont town with limited internal IT capacity.

    • Supports Select Board governance plus approximately eight volunteer boards and commissions.

    • Works as a sustainable operating model for staff plus trained volunteer content managers.

    • Includes ongoing support from 2024 through the present.

Architecture Overview

Deep Dive: Project Architecture

  • CMS Layer: WordPress 6.x with a custom Timber/Twig-based theme.

  • Accessibility Layer: The accessibility stack included axe DevTools, WAVE, Lighthouse, NVDA, VoiceOver, and quarterly automated auditing. A third-party audit and VPAT documentation were also included.

  • Search & Forms Layer: SearchWP with PDF indexing, Gravity Forms with custom validation, and The Events Calendar Pro for event workflows.

  • Permissions Layer: PublishPress Capabilities supported custom roles and page-level permission controls.

  • Hosting & Security Layer: Pantheon hosting, Cloudflare CDN, daily off-site backups, UptimeRobot, and Sentry.

Deep Dive: Project Architecture

Value

Quality & Fidelity

The improvements that made a real difference for residents, staff, and volunteers

Better Accessibility

Better Accessibility

The site included third-party accessibility auditing, VPAT documentation, monthly automated scans, and quarterly manual reviews.

Better Publishing Control

Better Publishing Control

The Town Clerk and volunteer boards can work inside clearly defined publishing and approval workflows.

Better Public Self-Service

Better Public Self-Service

Residents can submit important forms online and find documents faster.

Better Editorial Independence

Better Editorial Independence

Town staff and volunteers continue to manage content independently after training.

Benchmarks

Scale & Reliability

Performance metrics and uptime numbers that held up in real-world operation

High Uptime

High Uptime

The site achieved 99.98% uptime in 2025.

Strong Support SLAs

Strong Support SLAs

Critical incidents had a two-hour response target and averaged 47 minutes in actual response time.

Clean Migration Launch

Clean Migration Launch

The migration included 301 redirects and zero broken links at launch.

Stable Security Posture

Stable Security Posture

The site operated without any security incidents over 22 months.

Data Protection

Security & Compliance

Meeting Vermont Open Meeting Law, WCAG accessibility standards, and operational security requirements

Open Meeting Law Support

Open Meeting Law Support

Meeting workflows were explicitly structured to match Vermont legal requirements.

WCAG 2.1 AA Alignment

WCAG 2.1 AA Alignment

The project combined technical remediation, tooling, audits, and editor training.

Operational Security

Operational Security

The platform included WAF, CDN, backups, uptime monitoring, and issue tracking.

Innovative Experience

Industries & Use Cases

Where this municipal website model fits best — and who benefits from it

Small Town Governments

Small Town Governments

A strong fit for municipalities with limited internal IT and many volunteer contributors.

Municipal Online Services

Municipal Online Services

Supports permit requests, records requests, and local event submissions.

Town Clerk and Select Board Offices

Town Clerk and Select Board Offices

Supports agendas, minutes, recordings, and public document publishing.

Ongoing Municipal Website Support

Ongoing Municipal Website Support

Ideal for towns that need retained support after launch.

Delivery Crew

Project Team

High-performing developers for growing companies

Eugene Katovich

Eugene Katovich

Sales Manager

Need a town website that is accessible, easier to manage, and built for long-term support?

Plavno helps municipalities modernize outdated websites, improve public access, support board workflows, and give staff a platform they can actually run.

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Competitive Ability

Key Performance Flow

Demonstrating how Plavno transforms a legacy small-town website into an accessible public information platform with ongoing support

From legacy migration to daily town publishing and long-term support — everything runs through one structured municipal website workflow.

01

Migrate legacy content

Move pages, public documents, and archived materials from the outdated website into the new platform.

02

Apply role-based publishing

Set up permissions for Town Admin, Town Clerk, Board Chair, Contributor, and Event Submitter roles.

03

Launch accessible public services

Enable searchable documents, online forms, event publishing, and Open Meeting Law workflows.

04

Support ongoing operations

Maintain uptime, security, accessibility monitoring, and SLA-based support for the town.

Delivery & Automation

Delivery & Automation

    • WordPress custom theme with Timber/Twig-based architecture

    • Reusable page templates for boards and commissions

    • Online forms with custom validation (zoning permits, records requests, event submissions)

    • Moderated events calendar with submission workflows

    • Custom Meeting content type for Open Meeting Law (board name, date, agenda, minutes, audio)

    • Simplified volunteer submission interface with Town Clerk notification and moderation

    • Site-wide search with PDF indexing (SearchWP)

    • 301 redirects with zero broken links at launch

Throughput & Scale

Throughput & Scale

    • 47 pages migrated from legacy SaaS platform

    • ~280 PDF documents migrated and indexed

    • Supports Select Board + ~8 volunteer boards and commissions

    • 3 town staff + 6 volunteer editors trained for independent content management

    • 99.98% uptime achieved in 2025

    • 340 online zoning permit applications in 2025 (up from 0 in 2023)

    • 22 months of security-incident-free operation

    • SLA: 2-hour response target for critical incidents (averaged 47 minutes)

Accessibility & Compliance Governance

Accessibility & Compliance Governance

    • WCAG 2.1 AA compliance with third-party audit and VPAT documentation

    • Lighthouse Accessibility score of 100

    • Lighthouse Performance 94, Best Practices 100, SEO 98

    • Monthly automated accessibility scans (axe DevTools, WAVE)

    • Quarterly manual accessibility reviews (NVDA, VoiceOver)

    • Vermont Open Meeting Law–ready publishing workflow

    • Editor training on accessible content creation

    • Public accessibility feedback mechanisms included in support model

Results

The numbers that show how the town moved from paper to digital

Stronger Accessibility Performance

Stronger Accessibility Performance

The website reached a Lighthouse Accessibility score of 100.

Higher Adoption of Online Services

Higher Adoption of Online Services

The town went from zero online zoning applications to 340 in 2025.

More Independent Content Management

More Independent Content Management

Town staff and volunteers continue to run the site after training.

Long-Term Stability

Long-Term Stability

The town stayed on an ongoing support relationship from 2024 onward.

Reduced Administrative Burden

Reduced Administrative Burden

Town staff no longer handle paper-based permit submissions, manual document uploads, or routine publishing requests from volunteers.

Tools We Used

Technology stack

CMS

CMS

WordPress 6.x
Timber/Twig
Custom theme
Permissions & Calendar

Permissions & Calendar

PublishPress Capabilities
The Events Calendar Pro
Hosting & Monitoring

Hosting & Monitoring

Pantheon
Cloudflare
BlogVault
UptimeRobot
Sentry
Accessibility

Accessibility

axe DevTools
WAVE
Lighthouse
NVDA
VoiceOver
Search & Forms

Search & Forms

SearchWP
PDF indexing
Gravity Forms

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Frequently Asked Questions

Quick Answers

Find answers to your common concerns

Was this project built for a small town?

Yes. The town had about 2,000 residents and a small office staff.

Did it include accessibility compliance work?

Yes. Accessibility was a core project requirement and part of the ongoing support model.

Could volunteers manage their own content?

Yes. The site included a role model specifically designed for staff and volunteer boards.

Was there ongoing support after launch?

Yes. Ongoing support started in 2024 and continues.

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