Kingman City plans switch from Novus to Granicus Peak Agenda; staff previews features and timeline

KINGMAN CITY — At a Feb. 18 work session, Kingman City staff and Granicus trainer Mike Kelly demonstrated the vendor’s Peak Agenda solution (accessed through the Legislate web app) and said staff plans to migrate the city’s agendas and minutes from Novus into the new system before the end of the month.

The demonstration covered how council members will sign in, review packets, annotate documents, bookmark items, and download agenda packets. Staff emphasized the public-facing landing page will look similar to the current site and that constituents will not need individual passwords to view agendas.

City staff said the change follows a vendor decision to phase out Novus. “We try to make this as seamless as possible for the constituents,” Mike Kelly, senior project trainer for Granicus, said during the presentation. Councilor Savage questioned the timing and said she found the Novus end-of-life announcement “abrupt and confusing.”

Why it matters: the city’s agenda platform affects public access and council workflow. Staff said councillors’ annotations and notes are considered public record and could be subject to public-records requests, a point the city clerk reiterated during the meeting. Staff also noted some documents in the packet may remain nonpublic and accessible only to council and staff.

Key features and limits

Kelly described the Legislate interface as device-agnostic and reachable at cityofkingman.granicus.com/legislate. Council members will sign in with a username formed from their first initial and last name and a password; the trainer said the system requires a 12-character password with mixed case and other common web-password rules. Council members can annotate attachments, draw on documents, upload images to annotations, bookmark items, and take notes tied to agenda items.

The app’s packet-download feature will let users export a PDF of the agenda with highlighted items and attachments. Kelly said some packet documents may be staff-only and not available to the public.

Public access and records

City staff said the public-facing landing page (the Granicus view) will be embedded in the city website and will allow constituents to sign up for notifications when agendas are published and to access archives. The clerk said agendas are posted no later than 24 hours before a council meeting and that the city generally posts agendas by the end of business on the Thursday before a council meeting. The clerk added that notes council members make in the application are public record: “These are considered public record. So any notes we take, somebody could ultimately submit a public records request for,” the clerk said.

Timeline and vendor support

Staff said data from Novus will be migrated into Peak Agenda. Kelly and staff said the plan is to implement the new system before the end of the month. They also noted that support for the older Novus product is scheduled to end in 2025; staff said vendor support runs through at least September 2025 and might extend to the end of the year.

Operational change

Staff pointed out a layout change: agendas will be organized into "action items" and "public hearings" rather than the prior labels "old business" and "new business," which staff said reflected the earlier system’s structure. Council members will be able to access commission agendas in the same interface where permitted.

Next steps

Staff asked council members to send any follow-up questions through the city clerk’s office so staff can coordinate with Granicus. No formal action or vote was taken during the work session; City work sessions are for discussion only.