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Council previews 'budget week' forums using keypad polling to gauge priorities
Summary
Staff demonstrated interactive 'budget week' forums that use handheld keypads for anonymous, real-time polling of residents about service priorities; staff emphasized results are input rather than a binding referendum and that combined session data will inform budget tradeoffs.
City officials previewed 'budget week' public forums that use anonymous keypad polling to gather residents' priorities as staff prepares a manager's recommended budget. John Eagle, who demonstrated the technology, said the system provides demographic cross-tabs and immediate feedback to participants; staff emphasized the results are advisory input, not ballots.
"This is not a referendum. We're not doing ballots," John Eagle said while describing the three-question format used at each forum (need/want/importance for services such as 9-1-1). Eagle and Ms. Bunting said the sessions allow staff to collect local views in real time and then merge results across the five planned community meetings for analysis.
Staff reported early turnout at two sessions (about 30 at the first, about 50 last night). They also described a separate youth session and informal outreach events scheduled at non‑institutional locations. Council members asked for copies of presentation materials and asked that staff preserve comparability across sessions where possible; staff said they preserve the initial core questions and append new, session-specific questions after the first event to avoid corrupting the combined dataset.
Staff said the approach is intended to give decision-makers a sense of what residents value as staff frames options to close the projected budget gap.
