Title
Peak Democracy - Virtual Town Hall Meeting
History
Founded in 2007, Peak Democracy, Inc. is the most widely used online public engagement platform for government entities, with 2,500 open town hall forums, reaching over 300,000 constituents. The California-based company has worked with over 100 government agencies in the United States, Canada and Australia, accommodating municipalities ranging in sizes of under 2,000 to 8 million residents.
In August of 2015, staff previewed the Peak Democracy virtual town hall website. The village agreed to a one-year contract from January 29-January 28, 2017. The village seeks this online format to further strengthen civic engagement on pertinent topics affecting all residents. This format allows the village to maintain control of public engagement by focusing on feedback from constituents while ensuring the dialogue is civil and legal. In 2016, the village provided residents with The Grapevine post, allowing residents to share any village-related question or concern, and a 2016 Village Priorities post asking residents to list the top three issues they would like the Village Board to address. Both posts remained open all year. Moving forward in 2017, The Grapevine and Village Priorities posts will remain, with additional potential posts addressing topics such as the mayor’s Open Lands Commission, water rates, and other upcoming village developments. Topics will be chosen with the input from the Board of Trustees and the Community Engagement Committee.
Peak Democracy will continue to provide the village with one Town Hall Portal and grant administrative access to an unlimited amount of designated employees. This cloud-based government online forum will continue to be implemented through the village’s home page. Peak Democracy provides network bandwidth and will host the village’s service on our server.
Peak Democracy will also continue to provide the village with best practices for government online forums. In addi...
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