Council reviews technology advisory board draft and demos a Qualtrics ticketing workflow for council emails

City staff brought two technology-related items to the pre-session: a draft ordinance to create a Technology Policy Advisory Board and a demonstration of a Qualtrics-based ticketing workflow for council correspondence.

On the advisory board, staff summarized resident feedback including a desire for diversity, ethics and social-impact review, and the ability for the board to bring proposals to council. Council debated the board’s scope—several members urged a forward-looking focus on emerging technology (three to five years out) rather than day-to-day operations. Staff agreed to refine the ordinance, investigate procurement/signature limits and return with legal due diligence.

Why it matters: A technology advisory board with a policy and ethics remit could influence how the city assesses risks, costs and beneficiaries of new technologies and provide long-range policy guidance. Council members raised concerns about guardrails that would prevent the board from over‑reaching operational staff roles.

Separately, Anna Casper from data analytics demoed a ticketing workflow built on Qualtrics: resident submissions create tickets, staff can assign ownership, send templated replies, log email history and export weekly dashboards. Features shown included single sign-on for council, a text‑IQ sentiment classifier and a weekly dashboard export. Council members asked for KPIs and raised process concerns about culture change (residents as "tickets") and the risk of multiple councilmembers sending conflicting replies; staff said they would pilot the tool and return with proposed KPIs and additional training.

Representative quote from the demo: "When staff answers that call, you'll be able to click on it and be able to see what the answer was from the staff," Anna Casper said, describing how council members could view ticket responses and a weekly summary report.

Next steps: Staff to refine the technology advisory board ordinance and procurement questions, pilot the email/ticketing workflow, propose KPIs and return with recommended guardrails and training materials.