At long last, Cleveland has stepped into the 2020s – or at least the city website has. 

City Hall revealed its new online presence Tuesday, scrapping an old design that dated back more than a dozen years.

“Cleveland is a city where entrepreneurial grit actually has a nice ring to it,” the city boasts, with a marketer’s spin, at the top of the new page. “Where world-changing breakthroughs meet genuine, hardworking people connected by the traditions we share, the opportunities we embrace, and the progress we seek. In other words, there’s no better place to live and work.”

The rest of the page caters to more workaday concerns, such as the trash pickup schedule, job openings and online utility bill payments. 

The website is the work of Cleveland-based Recess Creative, which the city originally hired in early 2021, the final year of Mayor Frank Jackson’s term.  

Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration took on the project in February 2022 and put about 18 months of work into it, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office said. The contract with Recess Creative to redesign the main city website and SustainableCleveland.org is priced at more than $568,000, according to the City Record. 

The firm also has contracts to maintain City Council’s website and promote the city’s airports.

As a candidate, Bibb gave the website unexpected prominence in his election-night victory speech in 2021. Amid big promises to reform policing and improve education, he added, “We will finally fix our website and bring it into 2021. I pledge that to you.” 

Not all parts of the site are fully up and running yet. An interactive list of recreational activities did not appear to be working as of Tuesday morning, for instance.

Signal Cleveland wants to hear from you: What do you need in a city website? Can you find it on the new page? Email us at tips@signalcleveland.org or call us at (216) 220-9398.