Officials at Winter Haven’s State of the City stressed transparency and resident engagement as central to responsible government.

OpenGov and budget tools: City Manager T. Michael Sabers announced the city launched OpenGov to make departmental budgets searchable online and previewed a four‑page 'budget and brief' intended to summarize the 500‑page budget for residents. "If you go to the city website right now, you can find a link ... it says the city budget. And you can search every single department's budget," Sabers said.

CityU and community calendar: Sabers highlighted CityU, an eight‑week civic education program that has graduated 104 people across cohorts and aims to build ambassadors for city boards and civic life. He also encouraged residents to use a new community calendar (city website) that aggregates events from the city and nonprofit partners.

Access tools and call to action: Sabers urged residents to use the Access Winter Haven app to report potholes and broken assets and to sign up for emergency alerts; he emphasized attending commission meetings and voting on ballot measures after providing context on fiscal tradeoffs.

What’s next: City staff will continue rolling out the live‑streaming/searchable meeting archive and dashboards tied to OpenGov and promote CityU signups for future cohorts.