Newspaper Empowers Their County Planning Department with Self-Serve Legal Ads

Column is crucial for us to be able to engage with the community and ensure there’s transparency in our process with citizens. It’s truly a crucial tool in what we do.”

Blake Kelly, Permit Compliance Officer, Planner Tech, Routt County Planning

The Routt County Planning Department in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, plays a vital role in ensuring that land usage in the county is lawful, efficient, and sustainable. The department issues various permits for different land uses, each requiring a public notice component.

Routt County Planning places these notices in their local paper, the Steamboat Pilot & Today. The newspaper then publishes and distributes the information to the public. In July 2022, the Steamboat Pilot & Today started partnering with Column to streamline public notice placement and offer their county a more convenient self-serve experience.

Michael Eggert, the Planning Office Technician, is an active Column user. “I use Column a little bit every day,” said Eggert. “I use it to place ads, make the payments, and see when our planners place ads. I love how it all happens really fast. There’s not a ton of delay, and I haven’t experienced any hiccups using it. Column is very intuitive to use. We had to add new payments recently, which was really easy.”

Kelly commends Column for “helping us ensure we get notices out to the community. It increases our visibility into what notices are in progress and lets us easily track their payment statuses. It also conveniently consolidates all information related to each notice, including its progress, billing status, and any necessary actions that need to be taken.”

Favorite Parts of Column:

• Email Notifications.“I like that every email I get from Column is important,” Eggert added. “When I see that an email is from Column, I know that means I have to do something with it — put it in this folder or that one or load the affidavit into our software and make sure it’s publicly viewable. The notifications are all necessary.”
• Enhanced Relationship with Newspaper.Kelly said, “It’s clear that Column pays attention to every user on their platform. The experience is streamlined for us and the newspaper. We still have access to everyone we must talk to at the Steamboat Pilot. It hasn’t degraded any of those relationships. Column only enhances the services and offerings of the newspaper. Column seems more like a partner to the newspaper than anything else.”
• Fast Support. Kelly also commended the responsiveness and professionalism of the Column support team. “The one time we had any hiccup with the system, the Column support team was incredible,” says Kelly. “The system makes it very easy to get support when needed. It was only once, and it was taken seriously and handled gracefully and professionally by Column support.”

Contact for Routt County: Blake Kelly, Permit Compliance Officer, Planner Tech, Routt County Planning, 970-879-2704, ext. 323; 136 6th Street, Suite 200, Steamboat Springs, CO 80487

For more info contact

Ross Miller

Business Development

Phone: (605) 868-6649

ross@column.us 

column.us