City clerk previews new agenda-and-meetings portal, aims for Aug. 1 activation

Clerk Holm demonstrated the city’s new agenda and meetings management platform, called AMM (Agenda and Meetings Management/Civic Plus), and said the city began the build in April and hopes to activate the public portal on Aug. 1. "This is what an agenda in the staff portal and then what it would look like to the public when they click on the tile and open it up," Holm said during the workshop.

The presentation showed three user views — a board portal for council and staff, a public portal with agendas, minutes and recordings, and a staff area for data entry — and emphasized search, calendar and quick‑access tiles. Holm said the vendor allowed the city to begin development before invoicing to avoid paying two systems at once. "Civic Plus agreed to allow us to start work on creating before they invoiced us," she said.

Council members praised the effort and noted the current system’s usability problems. One council member said the present portal "isn't very user friendly sometimes" and welcomed the ability to preview a live system by looking at Kennewick’s AMM site, which Holm offered as an example. Holm said historical imports of past agendas and meetings remain underway and she will provide additional detail at upcoming meetings.

The demonstration emphasized modest annual savings compared with the prior vendor (BoardDocs/Diligent) and focused on improved public access and internal efficiencies; Holm estimated the change would save the city several thousand dollars per year once fully implemented. No formal council action occurred during the demonstration; the item functioned as a workshop briefing and preview of forthcoming implementation steps.

The city’s clerk will return with more implementation details as the historical import completes and the planned August activation approaches.