Over the past several months, Breitung Township officials — including Holli Hehn, deputy zoning administrator/deputy assessor — and web developer Monte Consulting of Houghton worked to create the new website and logo design the board of trustees approved.

The township even hired a photographer to take shots of staff and highlights in the community of what Breitung Township has to offer.

“We were due for something a little bit more fresh,” Hehn said. “We wanted our website to reflect what we are trying to do at the township. We are doing a lot of forward-thinking projects and community-based projects and we really wanted our website to amplify that.”

The new logo features trees, a home, the township offices and the paper mill, representing that Breitung Township is an excellent place to live, work and play.

BREITUNG TOWNSHIP also has a new logo design. (Jim Paul/Daily News photo)

Hehn said the rebranding and website also carry a message township offices, staff and officials are here to serve the residents. This should help them be better informed and access services.

“The township’s goal is to be a resource for people and to help them pursue whatever it is they are looking to do,” she said.

An added bonus would be if the website helped someone decide to move to Breitung Township, she said.

“We want to show them the different services that we offer here … If it answers some of their questions or entices them to come here, that is wonderful,” Hehn said.

One of the biggest website changes is moving away from an .org to the .gov domain. Hehn explained the .org form is too easy to acquire, so scammers could make a similar-named website and use it to steal users personal information.

Getting the .gov domain was a long and complicated process — the township was vetted and made to prove it was a legitimate municipality, she said.

The township was assigned the URL www.breitungtownshipmi.gov so as to not confuse it with another Breitung Township in Minnesota.

The new website also let the township get ahead of a 2027 deadline requiring municipalities have ADA-compliant websites. The site will be easier to navigate for persons with vision and other impairments.

The website will be easier for many others to navigate as well, especially mobile users. In the future, users will be able to fill out and submit forms from their phones.

Contractors and potential employees, too, will like the accessibility of request for proposals and job listings.

Keeping residents informed will be much easier with the new site. Users will be able to sign up for email notifications for such things as special meetings, power outages, boil notices and other emergencies.

These will be on an alert screen users will see before actually getting to the website and will also be in a scrolling banner.

“We are really excited to roll out the email notification system,” Hehn said. “We hope that it helps to increase residents’ awareness of events that happen in the community.”