One of the things people asked me about when I first started doing these reviews was if there was a way to get notifications for particular topics. At the time, there wasn’t it but it planted a seed. To run with the analogy, that seed is about to fruit. It’s not “smart” in that it’s doing exact matches to words and phrases that either appear in the agenda description or in the summary sheet/staff report attached to each item. But for now you would be able to set a notification for your neighborhood, your street, a subject.

Because look, I get it, you want to keep up with what’s going on. You try to read the preview, but with a 95 item agenda, it’s not practical to go through yourself so a topic might slip through a preview. Or a development near your neighborhood is something you don’t want to miss.

Assuming the first test goes well (I’m writing this the night before) I’ll be opening up the pool of available testers to anyone who has contributed to Tampa Monitor. Once all of the kinks are worked out the plan is to open it to the public. As there are real costs involved with the service, A free account will start with a limit of 3 keywords and supporters would be 15. I have room to adjust as I see how popular the idea really is.

I would love to add other agendas to the search, and if they get added to Onbase they will. For now it’s limited to council and CRA. There are plenty more ideas, including email notifications on agenda changes/new supporting documents and a similar notification system for new development applications. For now though, keep an eye out for an email if you’re supporter and if you’re not but would like to help test, please reach out.