Last week, the Manhattan Beach City Council unanimously approved spending $54,900 on Granicus technology products that the council hopes will improve transparency, the efficiency of meetings and its relationship with citizens.
“We think it’s an important tool that will help us encourage and manage citizen input from an even broader audience within the community,” said City Manager Dave Carmany.
The new products will digitize the process of creating agendas and staff reports. With the new software, once an agenda is created, a minutes report will automatically be created and all actions, motions and votes can be captured for public record, according to a city staff report.
Currently, when a staff report is created, hard copies are delivered to each department for their review and approval, said Liza Tamura, city clerk. The process hinders productivity if a department head is in a meeting, training or out sick, she said.
Electronic access to the materials would decrease the city’s paper use, expedite the process of finishing the reports, and “would possibly allow us to prepare (agenda) packets one day earlier,” Tamura said.
The products will also allow council members and commissioners to use touch-screen displays to record votes, motions and requests to speak, the report said.
The citizen participation aspect of the products will allow the city to gather commentary from residents online before meetings. “Once the agenda is posted, you can collect feedback from all your citizens so they don’t have to come here at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday night and speak at the podium,” said Tom Spengler, CEO of Granicus, adding, “They can actually submit their comments beforehand.”
The city has contracted with Granicus since 2005. The company provides live streaming video, webcasts and podcasts of City Council and Planning Commission meetings, and search functionality for archived agendas and minutes on the city’s website.
A $34,200 portion of the costs – which includes an additional $5,000 for infrastructure upgrades, including electrical and wiring work – will be funded by the Public Educational and Government Access funds, and the remaining $25,700 will come from the City Council contingency account.
The Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Open Government, which includes council members Amy Howorth and David Lesser, identified initiatives that could maximize transparency, and recommended the Granicus products to the council. Officials said the products could be implemented within six months.
