Supervisors renew software monitoring public feedback

Jasper County Supervisors renewed their contract with a data and analytics company whose software this past year provided “extremely valuable” feedback from citizens’ public online comments. The board of supervisors agreed Zencity was a useful communication tool that assisted a number of major incidents.

To retain a three-year contract with Zencity, it will cost the county $55,800.

Jasper County Supervisor Brandon Talsma explained Zencity was originally purchased by the county for one year, allowing the governmental body to try the software and see if it was worth maintaining. The board of supervisors voted unanimously to approve the contractual agreement to continue Zencity’s services.

In the past few months, Zencity has been helping Jasper County increase engagement and communicate its message more accurately to citizens, Talsma said. It was also used to keep track of incidents within Jasper County. Talsma suggested the software proved useful during a much publicized homicide.

The body of a 44-year-old Grinnell man, Michael Williams, was found Sept. 16, 2020 in rural Kellogg. The body was found burning in a ditch. Some argued Williams, a Black man, was the victim of a hate crime. Jasper County picked up on that “chatter” with the help of Zencity’s software.

Early communications with the Iowa Nebraska NAACP led to the president of the civil rights group seeing no indication that Williams was targeted because of his race, Newton News previously reported. Talsma said the incident “could have potentially gone south pretty quick” had the county not caught wind of it early on.

“We were able to put out a press release from the NAACP to quell what was already beginning to come, so I think that right there kind of justifies their assistance and what they do for us in that one incident alone,” Talsma said, noting the software could have also alerted the county to protestors in summer.

Following the death of George Floyd, several people in the community came to the Newton town square to protest and hold a peaceful demonstration. However, there were rumors early on of “buses” full of protestors coming to Newton to cause trouble. Those rumors turned out to be false.

Still, Talsma believes the county would have been able to verify the legitimacy or manage those reports with Zencity. He argued the software would have been able to identify or discern if the organizers of the demonstration were local or from outside entities.

Talsma believes conversations are becoming increasingly more digital. To have those public conversations on one dashboard allows the county to “keep on top of misrepresentations or mistruths that were being offered up,” Talsma said. The county health department has found use in it, too.

Jasper County Auditor Dennis Parrott said the two times he used Zencity was during the November 2020 election errors and the March 2021 bond referendum. When the auditor’s office experienced election errors, Parrott was able to review public communications and get their feedback from online forums.

“The other one was when we got ready to do the bond issue,” Parrott said. “There was a point where we wondering if there were questions that needed to be answered. If people had thoughts and things that maybe weren’t in a public forum or in the newspaper but (they) were saying privately.”

Zencity was able to identify that information, Parrott said. This led to the county hosting a public forum to address some of those questions about the bond and the administration building. Parrott said the tool is “extremely valuable” to the county. It’s more money than he’d like to spend.

“But we’re getting a valuable service,” he said. “I think it’s the way of the future.”

Contact Christopher Braunschweig at 641-792-3121 ext. 6560 or cbraunschweig@newtondailynews.com