The Latino community in Bolinas plays a crucial role in keeping the village running. But when it comes to civic affairs—even when the conversation is about them—Latinos are often absent.

Will Bartlett, founder of the new Bolinas Civic Group, has devised a way to overcome the language barrier that prevents many people from participating in the community meetings he has organized each month since March. A former engineer at Apple, Mr. Bartlett developed software that can provide translation from English to Spanish, and Spanish to English, in real time. 

He knit the software together with existing online translation tools that work one-on-one but not in group settings. It didn’t take much hardware to bring it to life—just a radio antenna, which he found at Bolinas Hardware, and some inexpensive headphones, which he ordered from Amazon.

He debuted his creation at last week’s civic group meeting at the Bolinas Community Center, where several people donned the headsets. Only one of them, however, was Latino. 

“It works well,” said Carmen Alvarado, speaking in Spanish. “It’s very interesting, and I think it will be good for the community.” Ms. Alvarado earns a living cleaning houses, cooking and doing other jobs around Bolinas and Stinson Beach. For the two decades she has lived in West Marin, the language barrier has been a major obstacle to engaging the Latino community in civic affairs, she said. The translation software could change things. “I’m going to tell everybody about it,” she said.

Whether the new technology will draw more Spanish speakers to the monthly civic group meetings remains to be seen. Some argue that human translations are more effective—and that language isn’t the only barrier to participation.

“I hope the technology Will has introduced will help him and other members of our community to build even stronger personal relationships,” said Annie O’Connor, executive director of the Bolinas Community Land Trust. “Technology can be a powerful enabler, but it alone isn’t the answer.”

She applauded Mr. Bartlett’s efforts but said that engaging the Latino community requires sustained outreach, building trust and cultural fluency. For example, she said, the Bolinas Civic Group might have more Latino participation if it didn’t meet on Wednesdays when several local Spanish-speaking families attend church.

Ms. O’Connor speaks fluent Spanish, and she has hired a bilingual community organizer at the land trust. She plans to bring two more Spanish-speaking staffers on board later this month. 

“B.C.L.T. is currently working to become a bilingual and bicultural organization,” she said. “It’s a journey, not an instant transformation.”

It was a land trust project that brought the issue of community participation and translation to a head earlier this spring, after the county announced it planned to shut down substandard housing at the Tacherra ranch, home to dozens of Latino residents. The trust plans to provide emergency housing at an R.V. park next door, purchase the tumbledown ranch property and build affordable housing there. 

While the proposal enjoys widespread community support, it has provoked debates about potential impacts on the land and the town’s scarce water supply. When it was discussed at a civic group meeting in May, about a dozen Latinos came to the session, and they chose Hector Mora to speak on their behalf. Mr. Mora lived in town for many years until he was squeezed out of rental housing.

He read a statement in Spanish, and then his daughter read it in English. During much of the meeting, someone translated aloud to the small group of Spanish speakers sitting in folding chairs at the back of the community center. A few weeks later, Ms. O’Connor provided simultaneous translation at a meeting of the Bolinas Community Public Utility District board, which was considering water permits for the Tacherra ranch project.

Some participants complained that interpreters voices made it hard to focus. Mr. Bartlett figured a software solution would be more efficient than stopping and starting meetings while interpreters pause to catch up. In addition to the audio tool, he has devised a way for simultaneous Zoom captions to appear on computer screens during meetings. 

The civic group meetings, its website and the translation software are all components of what Mr. Bartlett calls the “Bridging Bolinas Initiative.” “Bridging Bolinas is designed to bridge the gap in communication to facilitate a completely inclusive conversation so that the community can determine what it wants to become in a way that is open and equitable to all,” Mr. Bartlett said. “Language should not be a barrier.”

A few days before Mr. Bartlett shared the software, Mr. Mora tested it out. “It’s not 100 percent accurate, but it’s close,” he said. “Will is putting in the hard work to make this happen for people who don’t speak English, and I think it will help a lot.”

Nevertheless, Mr. Mora said, software interpretations cannot convey the nuances of human conversation. “Machines can never have feelings,” he said. “There’s no emotion in those things.”

Mr. Bartlett started the civic group in March, when the community was engaged in animated discussions about how to get postal service restored after it was canceled due to a landlord-tenant dispute. The postal service had been operating in town for more than 150 years. 

Mr. Bartlett decided it would be useful to harness the energy of the ad hoc post office meetings and develop tools for promoting ongoing participation. He designed a website and scheduled monthly meetings, which he broadcasts live on Zoom. Each month, groups working on disparate issues come together and share their work. He promotes the meetings in both Spanish and English on his website, in the Hearsay News and on posters around town.

Mr. Bartlett limits each presentation and moves swiftly through the agenda, making sure that no one drones on. Drawing on lots of community brainpower, the presentations often include slick multimedia components. He avoids taking sides and strives to keep the conversation civil.

Bolinas held many ad hoc meetings in the past, where the debates sometimes grew heated.

“I wanted to create an equitable, open forum in which everybody has an opportunity to stand up and present their ideas without having people yelling at them,” he said.

Mr. Bartlett arrived in Bolinas at the dawn of the pandemic, after going through a rough patch in his personal and professional lives. He rolled into town in a Mercedes camper van with not much more than his surfboard. Four years later, in a village famous for being suspicious of outsiders, he finds himself playing a key role in community affairs.

“Will understands technology, and he’s infusing modern tools into community activism in Bolinas,” said John Borg, who has helped lead the campaign to bring mail service back to town. “The civic group meetings are well prepared, with nice PowerPoints and visuals. The speakers are lined up in advance, and it’s super-civilized. It’s a tremendous way to increase engagement in our town.”

Last week’s meeting included presentations on the post office, a wetlands restoration project and efforts to limit short-term rentals in town. Ed Chiera, a longtime resident fluent in Spanish, listened to much of the proceedings on the headsets provided by Mr. Bartlett. He was impressed by their accuracy, though the software fumbled a few words now and then—mistaking “wetland” for “humidity,” for example.

In future meetings, Mr. Bartlett said he hopes to have a bilingual person listen to the translations and correct mistakes through the headsets in real time.

When the meeting was over, Mr. Chiera  said a few sentences in Spanish to see whether Mr. Bartlett’s software could read it back in English. It did so—with no significant mistakes. 

“It’s very hard to get translation from Spanish into English and English into Spanish, but he’s doing it,” Mr. Chiera said.

The challenge now is to get the word out, said Pam Sabry, Mr. Chiera’s wife. “This is a pretty amazing thing that just happened. We’ve got to advertise this.”