James (Jim) Plager, the city’s chief information officer, briefed the commission on a suite of digital-service upgrades that the city planned to launch the day after the workshop.

Plager said the new city website was scheduled to go live April 22 around midday and will use the tamarac.gov domain; the site includes an accessibility widget, an updated community calendar (which can ingest events from partner organizations and county library feeds), embedded publications, a GIS portal and virtual park and public-art tours. He emphasized the site is a work in progress and that staff will continue to refine navigation and department content.

Plager described the city’s recent deployment of an Amazon Connect call-center solution that adds text messaging and (soon) web-based chat and video-chat options. He said the system can provide automated responses from publicly available city content, offer callbacks to callers who prefer not to wait on hold, and integrate with emergency alerts so callers interacting with the system receive real-time notifications.

Plager also said the city developed an Alexa skill that lets residents ask for upcoming events, connect to city contact numbers, or receive emergency-alert signals on Echo devices. He said the city is not yet exposing personalized account details (for example, individual utility bills) through voice or chat, though that capability is on the roadmap.

Plager asked for ongoing feedback from commissioners and staff as the digital services rollout continues and noted the city hosts an Amazon Connect user group for other Florida municipalities to share lessons learned.

No formal commission action was taken at the workshop; the presentation was an update on scheduled public-facing releases and ongoing system integrations.