Task force issues report on improving city's communication

The Daily Sentinel
BY NICOLE BRADFORD Staff Writer
August 3, 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and winter storm of 2021 taught local officials a great deal about communicating with the public.

But there’s room for improvement, according to local task force assigned to review the city’s communication efforts.

“All of our constituents ask us, ‘Why didn’t I know this?’ or ‘How can I know this better?’’” Councilwoman Kathleen Belanger said during a July discussion on city communications.

Since being appointed by council in September 2021, a 10-member Communication Task Force has studied and gathered feedback on various methods the city uses to communicate with the public.

“Much reference was made to the snowpocalypse,” task force chairman Graham Garner told the council during a report to the council July 18. “The city worked hard during that period — this was during the pandemic as well, and a lot of lessons were learned through those past experiences.”

In March, the city hired its first full-time public information officer, Kevin Meyer.

The city’s YouTube and Channel 21 are under-utilized, according to the task force, but could potentially be used for live stream workshops, seminars and other content. Council members agreed.

“People get tired of seeing the same city council meeting and they get tired of not having fresh content,” Councilman Chad Huckaby said. “How do we get to where we have fresh things?”

Meyer said increasing the city’s presence on YouTube and Channel 21 is a task that’s in the works, but funding and production equipment are needed.

The city’s NacWise alert system sends mass notifications about disasters, weather warnings or issues with state maintained thoroughfares.

“NacWise is something where people can sign up on their cellphone or home phone,” Meyer said. “One of the features is we can geo-fence an area. We can notify all the numbers in that area to notify just those people.”

The task force recommended the city’s public information officer be among the first to receive updates during a disaster, weather event or other emergency, so that information could be more quickly dispersed to the city’s various outlets.

“It’s easy to become so focused on the task or the problem solving that we lose sight of the need to let others know what we’re doing, that we care what they have to say and they are heard,” said Garner, the chief communications officer for Stephen F. Austin State University.

In his role at SFA, Garner said, he’s had firsthand experience in public relations challenges, most recently with a June cyberattack targeting the university.

“While there might be a number of people who are directly affected by what’s happened,” he said, “it’s clear the larger community has had a greater interest in understanding what happened and how we worked through it.”