City of Oshkosh adopts innovative public engagement platform

City of Oshkosh adopts innovative public engagement platform

Diversifying engagement through technology

OSHKOSH, Wis. January, 18, 2018 – The City of Oshkosh is excited to announce the launch of Polco, an innovative engagement platform where residents can directly influence the community decision-making process by responding to survey questions.

Through new insights using the Polco’s civic analytics website and apps, the city will post questions directly to residents and receive insightful, reliable data to drive local policy decisions. By increasing civic engagement through web-based polling, there is an opportunity to meet Oshkosh residents where they are and collectively move policy forward. Nick Mastronardi, Founder and CEO of Polco, states, “When all constituents feel a part of the decision process, communities inherently become more resilient to future challenges.”

The City values community knowledge and is committed to improving communication channels to impact change. The City of Oshkosh is dedicated to sharing polling results and explanations of policy decisions based on this new mode of participation. The City will start polling with questions having to do with the future use of the Lakeshore Golf Course site.

“Polco will give residents a greater opportunity to provide their input and opinions on the Lakeshore topic, in addition to more easily access information regarding the decision. This feedback will be used to drive public policy decisions,” said City Manager Mark Rohloff. “We look forward to using this new tool to supplement the public input process on both big questions like Lakeshore, as well as more general items such as snow and ice removal.”

Residents become active users by visiting https://polco.us/oshkosh and creating an account. Polco’s platform is available via web, mobile, email, and any place Polco e-ballots are found online. This service is free to all constituents.

Polco is committed to a strict privacy policy where they only share aggregated de-identified results. Participant detailed data and votes are never shared

If you would like more information about this topic, please contact Emily Springstroh at (920) 236- 5269 or espringstroh@ci.oshkosh.wi.us.