Date:

July 8, 2004

For More Information Contact:

Diane Gonzolas, Citizen Information Center, 441-7831

Terry Lowe, Information Services, 441-7113

Mayor Coleen J. Seng today announced new services available on the joint Web site for the City of Lincoln and Lancaster County called Interlinc. New services being added within the next month include:

• Event Parking, a new e-pay service that allows citizens to reserve and pay for parking garage space in advance of events, such as UNL Husker football games;
• Job Applicant Tracking, a comprehensive online employment service;
• InterLinc Action Center, a new system for citizen service requests, such as tall grass or weeds or abandoned vehicles; and
• MyInterLinc, which allows citizens to register for a variety of new online services.

Payment of water bills is the latest e-pay service to be added. Others e-pay services are animal license renewals, criminal history checks and payment of parking tickets and property taxes. The amount of e-commerce activity on InterLinc is now more than $1.5 million annually.

InterLinc can be reached at lincoln.ne.gov and lancaster.ne.gov. The site has more than 30,000 pages of information on City and County government and is accessed by more than 12,000 individual users each day.

Mayor Seng also announced that the City and County are promoting InterLinc by partnering with four private media firms - KFOR-KFRX Radio, KOLN-KGIN TV, the Lincoln Journal Star and Time Warner Cable.

"InterLinc gives citizens a link to local government services 24 hours a day," said Mayor Seng. "As more features and services are added to the Web site, it’s important to let the public know, and our InterLinc partners will help us get that message to citizens."

The InterLinc Partners were chosen through a competitive bidding process. Through cross-promotion, InterLinc is expected to receive about $200,000 in advertising exposure through the four partners. The local government commitment includes links to the partners on InterLinc and other promotion, including advertising on StarTran buses.