Florence council approves Granicus contracts for streaming, captioning and a new website

The Town of Florence voted to buy a suite of digital services from Granicus during its March 17 meeting, approving a three-year implementation of an EASE meeting streaming, captioning and transcription platform and a separate three-year website modernization contract.

Trent, a town staff presenter, described the EASE system as a professionally managed streaming, captioning and archiving solution that will replace the current ad hoc Zoom captioning setup. The contract for meeting streaming and captioning was authorized in an amount not to exceed $139,798, with staff saying year-one costs are approximately $56,000 and a one-time hardware setup near $22,000 funded through CIP.

Jeffrey Johnson, an account executive with Granicus, confirmed the platform provides machine (AI) captioning and human transcription options and said the system supports English and Spanish captioning by default. "We do have an AI closed caption and then a human transcription option," Johnson said, describing how transcripts and keyword search will allow residents to jump to agenda items across meetings.

Council members welcomed the accessibility improvements but asked for demonstrations and end-user testing before launch. "Whenever software packages come up, I would like to make sure we see a demo," Vice Mayor Adam said, and staff agreed to schedule work sessions and demos for council and community stakeholders.

The council also authorized a separate Granicus website contract (the 'web experience' package) not to exceed $145,410 for a three-year implementation intended to modernize the town’s site, improve ADA/WCAG compliance, add mobile-friendly and service-delivery features, and provide analytics. Staff estimated Year 1 costs for the website near $63,900 (including implementation funded by CIP) and a total three-year range of roughly $132,000 to $145,000 with contingency.

Both items were procured through the Omnia cooperative purchasing contract; council approved the agreements and authorized the town manager to execute the contracts. Council members requested multi-department demos, citizen testing and continued focus on tiered pricing appropriate for a small town before launch.