LAKE ELSINORE -- With its launch this week, the city's redesigned Web site received effusive praise, even from past critics.

"Oh, that's not bad," said Steven Manos upon viewing the site for the first time. "I'd have to say I like it. It is a genuine improvement."

Manos said he had complained to the city previously about what he regarded as the inadequacy of the old site. It was one of the issues the real estate executive brought up in his unsuccessful campaign for City Council in November.

City Treasurer Allen Baldwin, who was elected in November, also criticized the site, which was launched in 2000.

City officials, however, assured the public a vastly improved product was on its way, a promise fulfilled Monday afternoon.

"It's taken a while to do it, but it's paid off," said Chamber of Commerce President Kim Cousins.

While the site employs the same address as the previous one -- www.lake-elsinore.org -- it is obvious even from first glance it is not just an overhaul. It's a completely different setup, offering numerous features that were previously lacking.

Baldwin said he was surprised by the "transparency," including quick access to documents that are the foundation of city government.

"It's tremendously inclusive," he said. "It makes it very easy to navigate City Hall. … I certainly like having the entire city budget on it. I like having the municipal code on it."

City administrators started working on the project in April in conjunction with Web site developer Vision Internet, which was paid $79,000 for the work, and Granicus Inc., which created the site's streaming video capacity for $10,000, officials said.

Ongoing costs will approach $3,000 per year, said city spokesman Mark Dennis, a member of the city's information technology team riding herd on the project.

The streaming feature provides a function many users had called for -- it allows them to view City Council meetings live and to retrieve video of previous meetings.

From a visual perspective, the site is much more pictorial and colorful than its predecessor. The first thing users see upon calling up the new site is the city's name and "Dream Extreme" logo at the top along with an overhead view of the lake and silhouette of the mountain ridges to the west.

Underneath is a slide show that features a wide-angle view of the baseball field inside The Diamond stadium, alternating with a photo of skydivers over the lake that morphs into a collage adding water skiers and hang gliders. Below the slides and to the right is the date, a brief weather description and the current temperature.

In between the logo panel and the rotating photos is a strip with buttons providing access to several broad areas of municipal government. While most of those were found on the old site, the categories available after clicking on those titles have been greatly expanded.

There's also a button labeled "I want to …" that provides an instant index to about any function of city government a resident would want to know of. The idea, Dennis said, was to get away from a site modeled on government structure and create something highly accessible from the public's perspective.

"The philosophy of this Web site is to be a click or two away from the site you want to go to," Dennis said recently in a presentation to the City Council.

In addition to the standard departmental guides on the left panel, the middle section is occupied by two functions labeled as "Top Stories" and "Upcoming Events." "Top Stories" lists important developments, including breaking news.

For example, Dennis on Tuesday posted information about Riverside Drive being closed and traffic being detoured as public safety personnel mopped up an accident scene. That was later followed with an announcement that the road was reopened.

"Upcoming Events" provides details of meetings and civic events in the near future, while a calendar under that heading lists happenings throughout the month.

"We're just getting our hands on this thing now," Dennis said. "What you see now is certainly a work in progress."

Cousins said the site already has proven useful as he has been able to funnel people asking questions about city functions to the Web site rather than directing them to City Hall.

Manos' only complaint was that the site lacks references and links to community sports such as Little League, youth soccer and adult softball. Suggestions such as those should be easily accommodated with the new format, Dennis said.

"I would say 95 percent of the items I wanted have been addressed with this Web site -- it's solid," Manos said.

While Lake Elsinore is often perceived as playing second or third fiddle to neighboring cities in the realm of progress, in Baldwin's view, it is leading the band with this production.

"I don't know of any city Web site that comes even close to that," he said.

Contact staff writer Michael J. Williams at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2635, or mwilliams@californian.com.