In an ongoing effort to make communicating with city officials easier, the city of Littleton has launched a new city website and extended the life of the Inspire Littleton site.

“(The new website) looks fresh and exciting and has a lot more features,” said City Manager Michael Penny. “It is organized by function now, as well as by city department, so visitors should have an easier time finding the information they need.”

While the city website’s address is the same (www.littletongov.org), the look is fresh and clean. It’s intended to market the city to residents, businesses and visitors — a long-discussed goal of many city councilors.

One new feature of note is the “I Want To …” tab, which provides links to things citizens might want to pay, visit, locate, register for, report or learn about, among others. Also new are event calendars and a subscription service where people can sign up to receive email alerts about topics that interest them, including events, board and commission meetings, legal notices, media releases and more.

There seem to be a few things left to do — on Jan. 11, the “Municipal Court” tab had no content, for example.

The old website was built in-house and launched in 2000. It grew to more than 1,800 pages and included hundreds of documents, ending up cluttered and confusing.

A team including at least one employee from each department identified criteria for the new site and selected Vision Internet from Santa Monica, Calif., to develop it. VI has created more than 500 government websites across the United States.

This is the first time capital funds have been designated specifically for the site.

Inspire Littleton, with a website at www.inspirelittleton.org, was intended to end with the year 2012, but city staff felt it was popular enough to continue. It was launched as part of the comprehensive planning process and offers the chance for anyone to share ideas, provide feedback and make recommendations for Littleton’s future.

The goal of Inspire was to get more people involved than just the “usual suspects.”

“We want to reach people who don’t even know where city hall is because they’re out there living their lives,” Penny said during a preliminary presentation to city council in February 2012.

A wide range of topics have been addressed, ranging from what to do about aging shopping centers to what people like about the city to what kind of development should happen around the light-rail station.

Commenters are known by just their first name and some random numbers, though everyone has to register with their whole name to use the site.