1. Purpose

    The City of Elk Grove’s website was established to provide factual information to the public about the City, its government, services, activities, policies, and resources within and around the City. The City’s website is not a forum for debate of public controversies or a general advertising medium for commercial interests. It is the City’s policy that its website avoids controversy and provides information suitable for viewing by persons of all ages. While the City will provide links to external websites that qualify under the criteria stated herein, the City has no control over and is not responsible for the content of any linked external websites.

  2. General

    1. The City will allow links only to external websites that are determined to be qualified links.
    2. The City will deny or remove external website links to the City website for any person, business, or organization that fails to provide all required information or fails to provide truthful information.
    3. The City reserves the right to revise this policy without prior notification to linked external websites or their sponsoring entities or organizations, or anyone else, and to discontinue any and all external website links at any time with or without notice.

  3. Qualified Links

    The City’s policy is to limit links to external websites that are owned and/or operated by the following kinds of individuals, entities, and organizations:

    1. Local, state, or federal governmental agencies or local school boards.
    2. Museums, libraries, historical organizations, and similar kinds of established, bona fide organizations that provide cultural resources to residents and visitors of the City.
    3. Entities that have received grant funding from the City.
    4. Entities that maintain an ongoing, direct written contractual relationship with the City for the provision of goods or services.

  4. Prohibited Links

    The City shall not provide links to the City website for external websites that include, in whole or in part, any of the following at any time:

    1. Websites that are owned or operated by any individual, organization, entity, political party, candidate, or special interest group, or their agents, or that are of a political nature, associated with, sponsored by, or serving the interests of a candidate or incumbent for elected office, any political party, or an organization supporting or seeking to defeat any candidate for elective office or ballot proposal.
    2. Websites that include the expression of opinion and/or debate on topics of public concern, interest, or controversy, including, but not limited to, religion, politics, philosophy, sports, or arts, regardless of whether or not such information purports to be neutral or present all sides of the topic.
    3. Websites that contain any materials that may reasonably be considered scurrilous or offensive. Offensive materials are defined as sexual content or images, slurs against race, religious or political beliefs, age, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, or physical attributes.
    4. Unless qualified under Section 3, websites that do not maintain an ongoing, direct written contractual relationship with the City for the provision of goods or services.

  5. Removal of Link

    The City shall remove any link to an external website that does any of the following:

    1. Fails to comply with this external website link policy.
    2. Provides or promotes false, slanderous, illegal, immoral, or incorrect information.

  6. Procedure

    Application.