Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office gets new website to replace $2.9 million version from former sheriff

Updated 1/10/13: The Sheriff’s Office has an even newer website. It appears to have been updated in the last week with a sleeker design, though it seems to have even less information on sheriff’s sales. On a positive note, the sheriff’s sale data that is available is no longer in PDF format.

Chief Data Officer Mark Headd said on Twitter that the data on the Sheriff’s site is “very scrapeable.” “Just wish there was more of it,” he tweeted.

We also spoke with Luz Cardenas of Cardenas Grant Communications who said that her firm created a site for Acting Sheriff Barbara Deeley‘s one-year tenure but is not working on Sheriff Jewell Williams‘ latest site. 

The Sheriff’s Office has a new website, after it spent at least half a year looking like this, Naked Philly reported. And hey, it’s a WordPress site.

In January 2012, Philadelphia welcomed a new Sheriff to town, Jewell Williams, who ran a campaign that included a push of transparency. This new website is something of a replacement for the “Under Construction” page, which still exists as an apparent update to the earlier version that, as a 2011 City Controller report showed, cost $2.9 million over five years.

So, let’s say perspective on the new site, which has not been timed with any data releases, is still being formed.

Naked Philly also pointed out that:

• the site is extraordinarily hard to find via Google (or on DuckDuckGo, for that matter), which makes things confusing since PhillySheriff.com still exists and may well continue to exist until its registration ends in May 2015, according to WhoIs. Sheriff’s Office spokesman Joseph Blake told the Philadelphia City Paper last May that it was a “legal battle” to get the site taken down.
• the site doesn’t list any upcoming sheriff sales, and the outdated ones are listed in PDF format, making it near impossible to search.

Back in July, Blake told us that the office was still looking at proposals for the website. He said that the website redesign would involve making the site “interactive for searches.” We’re waiting to hear back from Blake on the finer details of the redesign and if there’s still more to come.

In the meantime, a quick WhoIs search for OfficeofPhiladelphiaSheriff.com shows that in May of 2012, Center City firm Cardenas Grant Communications registered the domain. A prominent communications shop in the city led by Barbara A. Grant, the city’s former director of communications, and Luz Cardenas, former first deputy director of communications, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Cardenas Grant Communications lists SEPTA, the School District, and multiple phila.gov websites as its clients.

It’s unclear if Cardenas Grant Communications built the site (though it’s listed on the shop’s clients site), as Blake said the office was still considering proposals months after the domain was registered. We’re still waiting to hear back from Cardenas Grant Communications and will update the story when we do.