Advisory board explores a centralized community calendar; town staffing and approvals emerged as constraints

Members discussed a proposal to create a centralized community calendar (or mobile app) that aggregates town meetings, school events, recreation programming and community groups into one searchable, taggable interface accessible from phones and the town website.

Town web staff said the municipal website technically could host a broader calendar but that the clerk’s office and town IT have limited bandwidth and restricted permissions. EDAB members suggested an open-submission model with a small number of local approvers to minimize town workload: community groups would enter events, and designated approvers would confirm postings. The web technician said a definitive answer on implementation and permissions would require town-board approval and coordination with the clerk’s office.

Members discussed alternative hosts or partners: the Chamber of Commerce already provides member-facing tools and could host business events and tourism content; IsleDeGrama and local Facebook groups publish many community events now. Several members proposed a phased approach: identify off-the-shelf calendar software, test a pilot, then decide where it should live and who will maintain it. The board suggested potential staffing options — a student or intern, community volunteers, or a chamber partner — and discussed funding the initial work from EDAB resources if the town cannot operate it long-term.

EDAB assigned a follow-up task to research candidate calendar/app platforms and report back with the top three options and cost estimates for discussion at the next meeting. Members emphasized that the calendar should allow category filters (e.g., government meetings, sports, community groups) and should be mobile-friendly.