Oglesby staff to compile policy manual; council pauses on open community calendar

Oglesby — City staff will begin compiling the municipality's scattered policies into a single policy manual, and the council agreed to delay a final decision on hosting a community‑submitted event calendar until the manual and social‑media policy are reviewed.

Staff told councilors many policies reside in multiple folders on an internal F drive or exist only in paper; examples cited include a social‑media policy passed by ordinance, sewer credit and net‑metering documents and personnel/HR policies that are not compiled in one place. The clerk suggested gathering all current policies, organizing them into a coherent manual and digitizing the result for regular review.

The community calendar idea — a staff‑moderated online calendar where nonprofits and businesses could submit events via a Microsoft Form — drew caution. Councilors said a passive community board might be acceptable, but they were concerned about perceived favoritism toward businesses and the administrative burden of monitoring submissions and the city’s public pages. The council asked staff to compile the policy manual first and then bring calendar options back with recommended screening criteria and suggested language to limit commercial promotion.

Next steps: Staff will inventory existing policies, digitize them and present a draft policy manual for council review. Only after that work will council reconsider a community calendar and any needed changes to the social‑media policy.