eComment

Citizen Participation  >  eComment

More than ever, government is expected to replace traditional, passive formats for handling citizen interactions—letters, phone calls, in-person, and emails—with high-speed, easily accessible Web-based formats. They must also find ways to give citizens a stronger voice in democracy. eComment helps agencies meet these challenges by facilitating fast and constructive citizen collaboration over the Web. With eComment, citizens can conveniently use self-service tools to submit an opinion and comment on upcoming public meeting agenda items. The system works effectively within government processes and regulations to help staff route, retain, and track citizen feedback—without extra risk or hassle.

How eComment can help:

• Encourage constructive citizen collaboration with online public testimony.
• Give citizens the opportunity to have a stronger voice in the democratic process.
• Make citizen feedback easier to capture, manage, and measure.
• Add efficiency and eliminate risk by working within government procedures and regulations.
• Heighten citizen satisfaction with shorter response times and more representative governance.

Encourage inclusive and productive citizen collaboration

As technology matures, Governments are expected to adopt new methods of engaging citizens and encouraging new voices in the democratic process. eComment gives citizens—who are unlikely, or unable, to participate—the opportunity to conveniently weigh-in and comment on particular agenda items of interest.

Quickly gauge public opinion

Controversial agenda items often generate an unwieldy amount of commentary, making it difficult for an elected official to quickly assess public opinion and key points. eComment provides an online environment for the public to formally submit their position (support, oppose, neutral) and comments on an item. This information is securely retained and measurable in our MediaManager application so elected officials have an instant way to gauge public opinion around specific topics.

Enhance the quality of citizen engagement and participation

Receiving dispersed letters, voicemails, calls, in-person or emails from citizens on a range of issues can be difficult to manage. Oftentimes inputs get lost or delayed until they can find their way into the formal public process. Adding eComment to online agendas encourages more informed and productive citizen collaboration by focusing feedback on current agenda items. Citizens also have the opportunity to educate themselves further on the issue before commenting by watching previous meeting discussions or by downloading supporting materials like staff reports that are instantly available on the View Page.

Capture citizen input through a formal, risk-free public process

Increasingly, governments are moving away from online “chat-room” formats of dialogue with citizens because it raises a number of legal questions and concerns around privacy, right to free speech, and open government. eComment was designed to flexibly work within specific government processes and regulations. By integrating online public testimony and management with the formal public process, eComment helps agencies minimize these risks and build constructive citizen collaboration.

Streamline public testimony tracking, management, and retention

The exchange between government and citizens is increasing in volume. Agencies require an efficient way to manage, retain, and track citizen feedback. eComment offers Web-based, centralized management tools to quickly configure eComment, activate, capture, and track comments in realtime. The process is structured, organized, concise, and on-schedule so citizens can rely on it. Also, just like formal public testimony, comments are retained securely as part of the public record and may be easily opened to public disclosure.

Increase responsiveness and lower public information costs

Minimize the manual, time-intensive task of recording and responding to public inquiries before a meeting by using a self-service Web-form to automatically capture public testimony. eComment has helped organizations measurably decrease public inquiries on agenda items. Also, through a seamless integration with other Granicus public meeting management solutions, eComment can also help reduce requests for public records. As a result, Clerks spend less time managing public inquiries and more time focusing on the meeting.

Citizens can easily submit feedback for on the upcoming meeting agenda by selecting the eComment button.

Keep comments within policy guidelines and regulations by customizing your eComment form details.

Weigh-in on decision-making by using this simple online eComment form to select an agenda item of interest, submit a comment, and indicate your position.

Use our template editing tools to decide how you want citizens to interact with your form with field controls and editable messages.

Enable eComments on the Web, schedule an automated receiving period, and track received comments from one location in MediaManager—quickly and easily.