Publishing Searchable Meeting Minutes On-Line with askSam

By Dero Forslund, Clerk Recorder Assessor, Trinity County

As the County Clerk of a small Northern California county one of my duties is serving as the clerk to the Board of Supervisors. One of the jobs of the Deputy Clerk is preparing the agendas and minutes for the twice-monthly board meetings.

We have looked at various methods of distributing the agendas and minutes. In the past we distributed the agendas and minutes to interested parties by asking the parties to provide stamped self addressed envelopes. This required both the interested parties to provide the self addressed, stamped envelopes and for us to keep track of the envelopes.

When the County setup its Web site we contracted to create a Web application to provide access to Board agendas and minutes with the ability to do word searches on the data. The application was written in a popular Web database program. The deputy clerk could update the database, but a search on the database for a specific word or phrase retrieved the document in question, but you still needed to find the word or phrase in the document by viewing the document as a whole. The database also required frequent maintenance.

I figured there had to be an easier way. A search of articles in PC magazine lead me to the askSam Web Publisher, which provides a much better solution to publishing the County Board agendas and minutes. Now the Board clerk simply adds the most current agenda or minutes to the askSam database and that file is posted on our Web site immediately through the askSam Web Publisher. The agendas and minutes are immediately available and searchable on our Web site by date of the meeting or by searching for a specific word or phrase. The search results show the paragraph that contains the word or phrase making it easy to find the action in question.

The public now has better access to the information they need, while maintenance of the database has been greatly simplified, plus the cost of the askSam Web Publisher is much less than the price of the prior database. Our Web site URL is: http://www.TrinityCounty.org

In addition to the agendas and minutes, we have been able to add the Grand Jury report database to the County Web site with full word search capability. Because the reports come in one at a time it is very easy to import them into the database as they come in. This makes it very easy to keep the database up to date with very little overheard and no need to involve the Web master when the databases need to be updated.

With askSam's Web Publisher, the public is better served, our staff can maintain our Web site and databases completely on their own, and we are saving taxpayer's money. Better service at less cost should always be the watchword for local government. If you would like to know how your county could utilize askSam's Web Publisher, I would be glad to assist you.

Dero Forslund

Clerk Recorder Assessor

dforslund@trinitycounty.org  

http://www.TrinityCounty.org