PublicInput

09/01/2026

We're growing, and we're excited to welcome Riccí Kearney to PublicInput as our new Technical Support Manager! 🎉

Riccí joins us with years of experience leading technical support and customer experience teams, including leadership roles at Apple and Relay Network. He brings a wealth of experience in customer support, technical operations, and team leadership, and we're excited to have his perspective on the team.

He's joining PublicInput at an exciting time, and we can't wait to see what we'll learn, build, and accomplish together.

New ideas, new perspectives, new possibilities. We're so glad you're here, Riccí! 💙

08/21/2026

For MPO teams, public involvement isn’t one task. It’s a connected workflow.

Our latest blog looks at five building blocks that shape public involvement, from reaching the right communities to reporting back and meeting compliance requirements.

If you’re looking at how your team approaches public involvement, this is a good place to start.

Read more: https://hubs.la/Q04tddlC0

MPOs are navigating more policy, more communication channels, and more expectations than ever, but for most teams, the tools haven’t caught up. PublicInput’s Public Involvement Blog Ser…

08/19/2026

A Zoom link is not a public meeting strategy.

General-purpose video tools can get people into a call. But public meetings require a lot more:

✅Who’s speaking?
✅Which agenda item?
✅How is phone participation managed?
✅What happens when a board member drops offline?
✅Who’s responsible for the record?

That’s the difference between a tool that hosts a meeting and one that manages a public meeting.

Our latest article looks at what government-grade meeting platforms are built to handle that general video tools aren’t. Read the comparison: https://hubs.la/Q04tdkFj0

A business video tool can carry the audio and video of a public meeting. It cannot carry the obligations that come with one. Most agencies running hybrid board and council meetings on Zoom or Micro…

08/17/2026

Charleston County’s Zoning & Planning Department had a simple problem: there was more public feedback than staff had time to manage manually.

By bringing email, text, voicemail, and online comments into one place, the team:
- Cut new project setup to about 5 minutes
- Replaced manual reporting and constantly updated binders with a live record
- Freed staff time for outreach instead of paperwork
- Increased positive feedback from 1–2% to 16%, an 8x increase

The result? More residents participating, less administrative work, and decision-makers with a clearer, always-current public record.

See how Charleston County modernized its rezoning engagement process: https://hubs.la/Q04tczc70

Charleston County, SC is home to about 415,000 residents across more than 1,350 square miles of urban, suburban, and rural communities, with about 35% of residents identifying as a minority. When t…

08/07/2026

Not every CRM is built for public engagement.

Most CRMs are designed to manage customers, sales, or donors. Government engagement teams have a different challenge: documenting participation, coordinating outreach across projects, and demonstrating who was reached.

The difference isn't just terminology. It changes what your technology needs to do.

🔗https://hubs.la/Q04s7q3F0

Local government agencies collect resident contact information across dozens of projects every year. Outreach lists exist. Email campaigns go out. Public comment is recorded. The question is not wh…

08/05/2026

Planners and communicators: Ever open a new project and think, "Where do I even start?"

Before the survey. Before the public meeting. Before the first email goes out.

The most important engagement decisions happen long before residents see the project. A little upfront planning can shape everything that follows.

If you're looking for a practical framework to start your next engagement effort with confidence, this one's for you. 🔗 https://hubs.la/Q04qRMmd0

Every new engagement effort starts the same way: a brief lands on someone’s desk, a deadline is attached to it, and a blank project page is waiting to be filled in. Before a single survey que…

08/03/2026

DOT and MPO communicators: When was the last time your outreach reached people who weren't already on your email list?

The same channels tend to find the same audiences. That doesn't mean your team isn't working hard. It means the way we reach people deserves just as much attention as the number of responses we collect.

If this is a challenge your team is thinking about, this article is worth a read.
🔗https://hubs.la/Q04qRMtB0

Walk into any public hearing on a corridor study or a capital project, and you can usually predict who is in the room. It is the same residents who came to the last one, and the one before that. Fe…

07/31/2026

City and County Clerks don't manage one deadline. They manage dozens.

And while meetings get the most attention, they're only one part of the compliance calendar that keeps your office running.

See why creating more breathing room often starts with the workflows that consume the most time.

🔗https://hubs.la/Q04qRtJH0

Ask most people in local government what a clerk does, and they will describe meetings. The reality is that meetings are just the most visible layer of a much larger compliance calendar, one that r…

07/29/2026

Getting approval for a meeting management tool isn’t always about proving the problem exists. It’s about making the impact visible.

Clerks often understand exactly where time is being lost — but leadership may only see the meetings, not the coordination, documentation, compliance, and follow-up behind them.

A strong business case connects the dots between staff capacity, operational efficiency, and protecting the organization’s public record.

This guide shares how clerks can build a stronger case for the tools that support the work they’re already responsible for.

🔗https://hubs.la/Q04qRzhf0

Many clerks reach a point where they know exactly what they need. They have watched the same bottleneck slow them down week after week. They have done the math on how much time a specific part of t…

07/27/2026

“The title says Clerk. The job is something else entirely.”

Behind every agenda, meeting record, election, records request, and deadline is a person managing far more than most people realize.

One clerk described the role as two buckets: the predictable work that fills the calendar — and “the random unpredictable things that time stands still for.”

We see the full weight of this role, and why giving clerks time back starts with understanding the work they’re actually carrying.

🔗 https://hubs.la/Q04qRx4M0

When a clerk tries to explain what they actually do to someone outside the office, they know how it goes. You start with meetings and agendas. Then you mention elections. Then bonds, contracts, rec…