Success Story | Idaho, ID
Idaho Falls expands public access and builds resident trust
OVERVIEW
With its vibrant economy, Idaho Falls serves as a regional hub for industries in agriculture, healthcare, clean energy, cybersecurity, and tourism. Sitting on the banks of the Snake River, it has become a haven for outdoor enthusiasts who flock there for fly fishing, hunting, hiking, mountain biking, and winter sports.
City leaders believe local government works best when decisions are visible, and everyone can participate. For years, Idaho Falls has used Granicus’ Fully-Managed Video solution (Swagit Avior) to livestream public meetings. But broadcasting alone wasn’t enough. Leaders wanted to open the doors wider so all 68,000 residents could be part of shaping their community’s future.
SITUATION
Idaho Falls’ small team relies on its Granicus video solution as a fully managed service, with professional producers handling everything from camera angles to real-time agenda indexing remotely. For staff, the setup is simple: The clerk sends an email to schedule each meeting, turns on microphones and broadcast TV, and the Granicus team takes care of the rest. Even switching between in-person speakers, presentations, and remote participants requires no extra setup, letting staff focus on the business at hand.
The clerk’s office calls it a game changer: It’s taken a lot of stress off their team, made it faster to share meeting materials, and made life easier for residents as well. Now, instead of digging through hours of recordings, people can quickly find the topics they care about with searchable transcripts and a video archive. Using Granicus’ Sound Search feature, viewers can search for a particular word or phrase spoken anywhere in the meeting and jump directly to that part of the video.
City leaders viewed this as an opportunity to foster true transparency, providing residents with confidence that they can easily see and understand what happens within their local legislative process. However, they wanted to go even further, looking for ways to remove barriers to participation and make meetings accessible to everyone.
SOLUTION
Each year, the city sets aside budget to improve accessibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The accessibility leader saw the fully-managed video system as a smart investment to help more residents participate in public meetings through closed captioning, Spanish translation, and transcription services; Granicus’ captions and translations are more accurate than standard consumer streaming captions, reducing typos and confusion.
This wasn’t just an IT upgrade; it was a coordinated effort that aligned with the city’s Limited English Proficiency (LEP) plan and broader accessibility goals.
These features help the city meet legal requirements while making meetings more usable for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, speak a different language, or simply need an extra way to keep up. When information is clear, more residents can follow the discussion, understand what’s being decided, and take part.
“For me, the first time I saw it working was like, ‘How did we live without this?’” said Lisa Farris, Idaho Falls grant administrator and ADA coordinator.
RESULTS
The upgrades made a huge difference in daily operations, offering the clerk’s office a reprieve from the time crunch the team used to feel between wrapping up a meeting and creating the official record. The Granicus transcripts transformed preparing minutes from a task that took days into a process that takes less than 25 minutes. The clerk team plugs the Granicus transcripts into an AI summarization tool, then reviews the rough draft for accuracy. This streamlined approach helped the team catch up on current minutes and even create records for meetings from two years ago — something previously out of reach.
These improvements also built trust with residents. City officials explained that having meetings available online through Granicus has created a new level of transparency. When residents come to the clerk’s office with questions or concerns about decisions, staff can easily show them the full video and transcript. The office even has a kiosk where people can watch meetings, read transcripts, or tune in live. This kind of easy, on-demand access gives residents confidence that decisions are being made openly and fairly. Even if they don’t use the system every day, knowing it exists reinforces that their local government is committed to transparency and accountability.
“We didn’t have the transcription previously, but it has been amazing — a huge time saver and a huge stress reliever. It makes it possible for us to get the information from these meetings out to the public so much faster than we could historically,” Geiser said.
City officials said Spanish translation and captioning make it easier for more people to take part in grant programs. These features help the city reach a wider, more diverse group and encourage more residents to get involved and apply. For the city, it’s a straightforward way to create fairer opportunities, allowing everyone to benefit from community programs.
With Granicus, Idaho Falls shows that just as its rivers and trails are open to all, so is its government.
