Monday, April 19, 2010

Click here for April 16th City Manager's Report

This was uploaded a little bit before 2 p.m. this afternoon.  The question is still open as to whether there were changes based upon City Commissioner comments from the Friday addition.  This is a screen shot of the "Document Properties" tab in the .pdf file.
It was saved today - does that mean there were changes made to it today from the original?

Anyway, if you have checked out the agenda packet for this coming April 20 City Commission meeting, the city is following a new format for their .pdfs  It's no longer a situation where you can click on an agenda item that you are interested in and have access to just that item.  You get, in this case, a full 466 page document that you can save to your hard drive, if you wish.  Those not familiar with all the functionalities of Adobe Reader may not know about the bookmarking capabilities.  If you follow the red arrow below, when you are on the city's website, you can toggle the bookmarks on and off by clicking on that image.  You can do this after you download the entire document as well.  Each agenda item is then indexed for you and you can click on the item you want to read - it will take you right to that page.
In other items I have read recently, I think this is part of the effort to have the City Commission go to a "paperless" agenda packet - something we have had the technology for and for which I have advocated for a long time.  The potential savings of not printing out the agendas is being low-balled by the city administration.  I think they will be surprised exactly how much money they will save.

But, also in what I have read, there has been talk of the ability to post notes by Commissioners on the agenda items as comments, etc.  Caution is advised here.  I don't know how this can be policed but it sounds like it could be used as a backhand way to communicate regarding coming agenda items - which would violate the Sunshine Law.  Just sayin'.  I'd like to know about how and when that feature will be used and if it will be accessible to the public.