Brandy seeks council approval to contract with Civic Plus for agenda and meeting software

Brandy, a city staff member who manages the council's agendas, asked the council to authorize a contract with Civic Plus LLC to provide agenda and meeting‑management software for the city council and its committees. She told members the software integrates agendas, ordinances, document access and meeting tools and can reduce staff time spent assembling meeting packets.

Brandy said Civic Plus works with hundreds of municipal governments and ‘‘uses different forms of AI to do the minutes for us,’’ though she added staff review would still be required. She gave a comparative example: the set of documents used in the council packet took council staff "3 hours and 27 minutes" to assemble previously and took Civic Plus about "64 minutes" in her test, a time savings she described as ‘‘invaluable.’’

The presentation emphasized end‑to‑end transparency: creating the agenda, recording official actions and publishing ordinances and minutes in a single online location so citizens can access records from creation through codification. Brandy said the software could ultimately be adopted more broadly across departments so board and commission packets would mirror council documents and reduce formatting surprises for members.

IT staff and finance were noted as support points: Brandy said IT has technical staff on hand for detailed questions and that certain funding details (such as utility costs associated with implementation) will appear on the finance committee agenda. A council member thanked Brandy and Vicky for the work on agendas; the council then moved, seconded and approved the authorization to execute the contract.

The next procedural step is review of implementation funding on the finance committee docket; city staff indicated some technical and funding questions will be handled there.