City’s “eComment” page is up for tomorrow’s meeting
BY JENNIFER CABRERA / NOVEMBER 20, 2019
Gainesville has now added an “eComment” page for commenting on agenda items at City meetings. For example, you can find the page for tomorrow’s meeting here.
Once you’ve navigated to the page, you can look through the agenda items and select one to comment on. Each item is listed, even those on the Consent Agenda, but there is no information if you click on them, so you’ll need to peruse the agenda first.
When you select an item to comment on, you’ll get this disclaimer: “Tell us what’s on your mind. Your comments and information will become part of the official public record. If you do not want your personal information included in the official record, do not complete that field.”
There is also a notice that the agenda item closes for comment 2 hours before the meeting (in this case, you must comment before 11:00 AM on November 21).
You can then select a position (Oppose, Neutral, Support) and add a 500-character comment. The disclaimer says you can leave out your personal information, but you have to sign in to the system to add a comment, and the sign-up requires your first name, last name, and address. Then you have to validate your email address by responding to an email from “Speak Up, Gainesville!”
It appears that only residents of Gainesville are accepted by the system; it didn’t like my Alachua zip code. I selected the option to skip that step and continued. I was taken to an “Ideas” page, not back to the City Commission Comment form. I selected the “Meetings” option at the top of the page and went back to the City Commission meeting page.
You can find my test comment on the City Commission Minutes agenda item. My name is displayed, and I was not able to leave it blank or opt to not display it.
If you have something to say about tomorrow’s agenda, give it a try!