How a Town Clerk Preps Meeting Agendas 16x Faster With govMeetings

For most of her 27-year career with Snowmass Village, Rhonda Coxon has been the Town’s only clerk. She manages the meetings, minutes, and agendas of the town council and eight active boards. This included manually creating 22 sets of agendas twice a month for regular council meetings. These agendas would run 100 to 200 pages long and take an entire day to compile, copy, print, and staple together.

Another challenge the Town faced was an active group of part-time residents who wanted to know what was going on during the Town’s base village development. The project, a large, planned unit development, was important for the Town’s economy, helping it compete with nearby ski resorts.

“Members of our second homeowners group wanted insight into what was going on. They would have to wait for minutes or come in to listen to tapes where meetings were recorded. It created frustration for a group that was as important as local voters.”

Snowmass Village knew they needed to find a twenty-first century solution that streamlined operations and provided residents with a customer-friendly format for finding information. The Town found a natural solution with Granicus.

The Town implemented govMeetings. Granicus Video allows them to live stream and record meetings for their constituents to view on demand. Having recorded meetings also provides accountability. “There is no more doubt about what a person says. They can listen for themselves.” Councilmembers who miss a meeting can easily catch up before the next meeting.

Coxon says it was a natural transition to also implement Peak for agenda management after the introduction of Granicus Video. Peak helps keep agendas and minutes consistent across the different boards and familiar for residents. Additionally, iLegislate allows councilmembers to view a meeting’s agenda from a tablet device or computer, eliminating paper copies.

“My open records requests have gone way down. I can just refer citizens to the website for videos and meeting minutes.” Coxon says that citizens love it.

With govMeetings Peak, Coxon has saved time prepping and publishing meeting agendas. She no longer starts agendas from scratch but builds agendas from a template. A task that took her a day now takes 30 minutes. “With Peak, I don’t have to re-type anything, it’s already there,” says Coxon. She adds that she completes 90% of the minutes while in the meeting.

The Town also found that they were being more sustainable with Peak. Instead of printing 22 agendas, they only print one copy now. They reduced paper costs across the office from $10,000 a year to $3,000 a year.