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Communications office details costly accessibility work and outreach plans ahead of summer events

Dubuque City Council · April 16, 2026

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Summary

Communications told the council it has invested in automated PDF remediation and video captioning to meet web-accessibility requirements, is consolidating website contracts for savings, and is planning messaging for RAGBRAI and other major events.

DUBUQUE, Iowa — The city’s communications office described an intense accessibility effort and outreach plans on April 15, telling council members the department purchased automated PDF remediation software and has captioned thousands of minutes of video to meet WCAG 2.1 AA requirements.

Randy Gale, public information officer, said the web-accessibility mandate affects nearly 1,700 pages, 1,400 images and more than 13,000 PDFs on the city website; the office recently bought an AI-enabled conversion tool to process PDFs and said manual review remains necessary. Gale said the city captioned 7,075 minutes of video in 2025 and that complying with accessibility obligations is labor-intensive and ongoing.

Gale also described in-house air-service marketing work for the Dubuque Regional Airport and a contract-consolidation effort that could reduce hosting costs for partner agencies. He noted recent expansion of livestreams and a newly launched city YouTube channel, which logged more than 10,600 views in its first quarter including 658 livestream views for council meetings.

Council members asked whether federal funding offset accessibility work; Gale said the city received no federal money for the mandate. The office described outreach plans for RAGBRAI, parking-kiosk signage, and a proposed website chatbot pilot funded in the current fiscal year.

Gale emphasized the volume of work and the ongoing maintenance burden, and said the office will continue to coordinate with departments to reduce outdated PDFs and improve navigation so public-facing data is easier to find.