For the past year, the town of Boothbay has inched closer to a digital revolution. By this summer, residents, businesses and visitors will notice a big difference online.

A new town website is in the works, and it's scheduled to be launched by mid-June, according to Town Manager Jim Chaousis.

Touted as a major advancement in streamlining town services, Chaousis said the new website is just the beginning of the technology roll-out.

The improvements include updating the harbormaster's mooring system into an interactive online interface, and upgrading the town's tax maps with high quality Geographic Information System (GIS) imagery.

Chaousis gave a sneak peak of the new website on April 9. The site's new features include tabs tailored for residents, visitors and businesses with relevant information and corresponding links and videos.

“The great part about this website is you can constantly update it with information,” Chaousis said.

Additionally, each standing board and committee will be able to post their own meeting minutes, agendas and information on demand.

While the website is expected to expedite services, residents who prefer the traditional transactions can still do their business at the town office.

Moorings and new media

Boothbay Harbor Master Peter Ripley approached the Boothbay board of selectmen with a modern solution for regulating moorings and registrations.

Ripley intends to convert the town's mooring charts and registration process into a paper-free system.

In the next year, Boothbay boaters and mooring owners will be able to log on to Mooring Online, a third party service that provides online registration, real-time mooring reports, and instant alerts via email.

“A lot of towns were trying to do their own system and reinvent the wheel up and down the coast,” Ripley said. “And this company came up with one that really fits, and it can be customized.”

Not only will the online system reduce the costs of labor, paper and postage, Ripley said he would also be able to access the database during patrol.

“If I'm out there and see something going on, I can fire up my tablet and boom, I'm there,” Ripley said.

The service will maintain billing, report moorings that need inspections, registration renewals, and current hazards (such as restricted channels and unsafe swing room between boats).

For all new registrants, Mooring Online will charge a $5 fee from the town, and an additional $3 dollars to process paperwork online. Since registration fees rose by $10 last year, Ripley estimated the service won't eat into the amount of money saved in postage and paper.

If the town decides to enter a contract with Mooring Online, the software will be launched this summer before mooring registration renewals are collected in mid-August.

GIS tax maps

For the past year, the town's tax assessor John E. O'Donnell & Associates have been upgrading Boothbay's tax maps with modern, digital formatting and high-resolution aerial photography that will soon be available to the public.

In April of 2013, the town entered into a $35,000 contract to create new tax maps, street maps and updated individual parcels that are compatible with digital overlay software like Google Earth.

“Our original relationship with the town was to provide assessing and tax mapping services,” Mike O'Donnell said. “What happened when we got there is we recognized that the tax mapping was sort of in a state of disarray.”

 So the board of selectmen approved the assessors to build and maintain a new set of tax maps equipped with a complete GIS upgrade.

“Every year we have to make changes to the tax maps as part of the tax commitment,” O'Donnell said. “Now we're just going to have a better platform to work with.”

Under the contract, O’Donnell & Associates have built a high quality set of tax maps; and as the process evolves, the maps will be used to establish better zoning and shoreland zoning maps.

The mapping upgrades will soon be available to the public by July 1 as stipulated in the contract.