City of Sonoma unveils new CivicWeb Portal

The City of Sonoma has implemented a new paperless council and commission meeting management system thanks to a new website portal developed in partnership with iCompass Technologies, a government technology company. The agenda, packets and broadcast meetings of the City Council and its Commissions/Committees can now be more easily accessed and searched from a web page.

The button for the portal can be found on the City of Sonoma home page, CivicWeb Meetings Portal.

“The new CivicWeb portal transforms the way people obtain information about Council and Commission/Committee meetings, making open governance a reality for the City of Sonoma,” said City Clerk Rebekah Barr in a press release announcing the website enhancement. “The portal is designed specifically to promote open government, so it’s easy to navigate and access information.”

With the portal, the public can now:

Use the calendar to find an upcoming or previous meeting;

Subscribe to e-updates about meetings of interest;

Click on the meetings tab to review information organized by Council, Commission, or Committee;

Search e-resources on a specific topic using an advanced “Google-like” search engine;

Watch the livestream of a Council meeting while in progress or go back and review the archive later on your computer or any mobile device;

Read agendas, minutes, and other related documents;

On one page – Watch the Council meeting, view the agenda, and browse the specific staff reports

Though Council meetings have been livestreamed, recorded, and posted by SVTV27 in the past, with this new service the livestreams will be easily accessible directly from the CivicWeb Portal and can be viewed on any device – desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone. Once recorded, each video will be archived and be available with the agenda and minutes (except meetings held elsewhere, which are not recorded).

Some changes have also been made in how the public contacts the City Council. Each Council member has been issued a city email in the format of: firstname.lastname@sonomacity.org.

For example, to contact Mayor Rachel Hundley: rachel.hundley@sonomacity.org. A member of the public can also send an email to the City Council as a whole at citycouncil@sonomacity.org. Council members will no longer be responding to emails sent to their personal emails.