The Seal Beach Police gave the City Council a short presentation about the modernization of the Police Department website.
“In essence, we’ve put together a Police Department website that is fully functional and necessary for us to conduct police business throughout the city,” said SBPD Chief Phil Gonshak said.
According to the chief, the project had been going on three or four years. He said it went live last week.
SBPD Management/Crime Analyst Kevin Edwards gave the presentation after he was introduced by Chief Gonshak.
Edwards said his specialty is police IT deployment.
He said the department was proud of the website transition that they had just wrapped up.
Edwards said the department wanted to provide a modernized and streamlined user experience “catered” to Seal Beach citizens.
According to his PowerPoint presentation, the goals for the new website are to:
“• Create a conduit to the community
“• Promote interaction with the public
“• Provide up to date access to public safety resources
“• Enhance aesthetics with modernized content.”
Currently, the website includes news feeds and press releases, as well as allowing residents to request vacation checks, report hate crimes, register bicycles and provide information about employment
Edwards said hate crime (and any crime) reports would go directly to an officer, “in particular the watch commander.”
“It would go directly to their cell phone so they would get that information very quickly,” Edwards said.
The new website shows drone footage of Seal Beach. News appears on the left side of the home page, with quick links on the right side.
According to Edwards, future upgrades the department hopes to add to the website are crime mapping, statistical reports, animal licensing, a mobile application and online crime reporting.
“We have the technical capabilities, primarily in-house, and we can rely on external resources if we need to develop something that’s a little bit more complex,” Edwards said.
Gonshak asked everyone to give the website a review.
The website is www.sealbeachpd.com.
