Information about this Web Site

INFORMATION ABOUT THIS SITE

This web site was first published on March 20th, 2000 for the citizens of Newton, Kansas. The site is intended to inform Newton residents about their City government, Emergency Services, Civic announcements, and City run utilities. This site is solely edited and maintained by employees of the City of Newton, Kansas.

Questions or suggestions may be emailed to the webmaster.

Our Policy On Linking To Or From This Site

This policy applies to the City of Newton, Kansas. The City's Web sites contain links to other World Wide Web Internet sites and resources. The City is not responsible for, and accepts no liability for, the availability of these outside resources. Linked Web sites are not under the control of, nor maintained by, the City of Newton, Kansas and the City is not responsible for the content of these Web sites, which can and do change frequently; nor for any internal links the displayed Web sites may contain. In addition, inclusion of the linked Web sites does not constitute an endorsement or promotion by the City of Newton, Kansas of any persons or organizations sponsoring the displayed Web sites.

The City of Newton, Kansas will link to sites of its choosing which contain data regarding the City and the surrounding South Central Kansas area, its residents, businesses, and visitors, if linking to the site furthers a specific purpose of the City that is articulated in an official written expression of the City's policies or purposes. These links are provided to further the City's purposes and not as a benefit to the linking party. No party shall have a right to link to any City of Newton, Kansas site by virtue of this policy. "Specifically articulated purposes of the City" are those purposes that are set out in official policy documents of the City. Specifically articulated purposes of the City that could be furthered by providing a link to a City Web site include (but are not limited to):

The promotion of the use of City facilities and services by links to entities that have contracted to utilize City facilities
Making known the availability of services to visitors and citizens by linking to entities that have contracted with the City to provide such services
Making available information about the organizations in which the City maintains a membership
The promotion of the economic development of Newton by ensuring that the City competes effectively in the regional and global economy, enhances its regional and international profile, draws fully on its diverse multi-ethnic heritage and takes full advantage of regional and international opportunities
Creation of an economically vibrant city by drawing upon the City's competitive assets through the City's relationship with organizations such as Chambers of Commerce, city-to-city committees, sister cities, international and domestic trade service organizations and other organizations to promote trade, investment and cultural activities
Facilitating access to education and health care by providing information about major educational and medical facilities within or nearby the City.

The following questions are among the factors that should be considered in determining if a particular link would serve a specific articulated purpose of the City:

Does the mission of the organization closely align with the accomplishment of a City objective, such that adding the link is helpful in meeting the City's goals?
Is the organization a business partner, contractual partner, or ongoing user of a City facility, such that the City benefits from promotion of the organization?
Is there such an abundance of potential links of this nature that a comprehensive list is unreasonable to maintain, and a representative sample would be more useful to a user of the City's Web site?

The City's Web sites and the selection of sites to which any of them may be linked is not intended to serve as a forum for free discussion. Ample facilities for free expression are available both on the Internet and in the physical world. Instead, these Web pages are posted to serve the City's need to make useful and practical information available to Newton residents, businesses, and visitors that facilitates provision of a City service or furthers another specifically articulated purpose of the City of Newton, Kansas.

If you believe a link to your site from a City of Newton, Kansas Web site would further a specifically articulated purpose of the City, but such a link does not currently exist, you may email us or write a letter setting out what specifically articulated purpose of the City would be furthered, where that purpose is stated and how the suggested link would further that purpose. You will subsequently be notified whether your link will be included on a City of Newton Web site, within 30 days of your written communication to the City. If you do not receive a written communication from us within 30 days you should consider that your request has been denied without prejudice to the later refiling of the request.

Sites that are linked from the City of Newton, Kansas are reviewed periodically to confirm that the link still furthers City purposes. The City of Newton reserves the right to refuse to post any Web site link or to delete links already posted at any time, in conformance with this policy, without notice.

ACCESSIBILITY

INSTRUCTIONS FOR COLOR BLIND USERS:
If you encounter any page which is difficult to read due to color contrast issues, please report this by calling 316.284.6016 or e-mailing the webmaster.
OTHER VISUAL DISABILITIES:
Our Site Map page will help you quickly navigate our web site. Using the free and downloadable FireFox browser may assist you if you need to increase the size of fonts beyond what the MS Internet Explorer browser can render.
If there is any information (or form) that is not accessible, please call 316.284.6016 or send email to the webmaster.
We don't recommend specific screen readers or other programs for the disabled, but IBM Home Page Reader for screen reading seems to be very popular. This program, as the name implies, is actually more than a screen reader. It checks behind the scene and reads past what is displayed on the screen, accessing all of the information on the page, regardless of what is showing on the screen.
Some of our online documents are in portable document format (.pdf). To read these documents, download Adobe Acrobat Reader. In addition, Adobe has a free downloadable accessibility plug-in, called Adobe Access. This plug-in helps to overcome some of the problems which screen readers have reading PDF documents. Adobe also has a free online Access translation service available.
INSTRUCTION FOR USERS WHO ARE DEAF OR HARD OF HEARING:
We do not provide audio files on our server at this time.

If you are interested in a general history of how the Internet got started, a good place to start is: Hobbes' Internet Timeline. It will take you from America's response to "Sputnik" and the Department of Defense's ARPA net to this years latest email virus. Additional information is available on the free encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

The main page of this site (index.html) is intended to load rapidly even on a slow 28.8 speed dialup account with a modem. The main page (usually) loads in 8 to12 seconds using the above criteria. We don't always meet the quick loading goal due to graphical demands of our contributors, but we always consider load time a very important criteria of quality. Most pages comply with the W3C XHTML 1.0 Transitional English standard and the W3C CSS 1 standard. This assures pages are readable by most browsers and most people regardless of visual or other limitations. Many pages are Section 508 compatible for maximum usability. Minimum requirements to view this site are a recent version of most common browsers @ 800 X 600 resolution with 16 bit (high) color. All pages are tested with Firefox 2 and MSIE 7 browsers.