Council authorizes CivicPlus SeeClickFix and AI chatbot; staff to bill in FY2026

City staff described a two-part customer-service initiative Oct. 21: SeeClickFix, a common municipal tool that lets residents report nonemergency issues (potholes, broken street lights, nuisance properties) via a mobile app or web portal and receive status updates; and an AI chatbot that will answer routine questions using information the city places on its website.

The city manager said the chatbot will pull information from a central repository (described as a folder of website content) and that the platform will allow staff to configure responses and provide a fallback contact prompt when the information is not available. Staff also said the SeeClickFix reports can be made public so neighbors can subscribe to updates for an item, and that the service supports anonymous submissions while still allowing staff to follow up via an internal contact email.

Council authorized the city manager to engage CivicPlus and noted that the contract contains an annual-cost escalation; one council member suggested negotiating a lower uplift (for example, 3% or tying to CPI instead of an automatic 5%). Staff said the vendor will begin implementation work now but will not bill the city until fiscal year 2026. The ordinance authorizing the engagement passed unanimously.

Staff noted some technical questions (the platform uses Amazon Web Services on the backend) and said they would confirm uptime and service-level details with CivicPlus. Implementation tasks and a timeline were assigned to the IT and City Manager offices.