City to reach out through Facebook

The city wants to be friends with its residents, Facebook friends that is.

Council agreed to have the city set up a Facebook page for news and events. It was one of several motions to pass in an effort to make the community more engaged in council decisions and policies.

"We would not be the first municipality to have a Facebook page and I wouldn't want to be the last one," said Coun. Cathy Heron, who brought forward the idea.

Prior to choosing to embrace social media, council agreed on two overarching goals: to improve the processes the city uses to engage people and to reach people in ways that work best for them. At the recommendation of administration, council agreed to set up a roundtable session to gather ideas from the community on ways to pursue these goals.

However, Heron put forward several ideas for more immediate action.

The result is that council will hire a professional writer to write a once-a-month council column that will appear in paid advertising space in a local newspaper.

The mayor will also deliver a state of the environment address, which is intended to be an annual event patterned after the mayor's annual state of the city address.

Council endorsed Heron's motion to have administration assemble a cost estimate for webstreaming council meetings.

Council also agreed to provide a second opportunity for the public to speak at council meetings so those who can't attend council's 3 p.m. start time will have a chance to speak toward the end of meetings.

Heron said she's aiming to provide a variety of communication options to fit peoples' differing communication preferences.

"I'm looking for anything that's going to help," she said.

Heron had another idea that council defeated — to change public hearing times to 5:30 p.m. from the current 5:00 p.m. Her idea to organize a series of public town hall meetings where members of the public can speak informally with members of council was postponed so administration could write terms of reference.

Different pages

Councillors Cam MacKay and Malcolm Parker were resistant to the direction Heron was headed with her motions.

MacKay doubted whether hiring a writer and using paid advertising would "bring us any positive benefit whatsoever."

"How is this going to be viewed by the public? Is this just ministry of propaganda, a mouthpiece for council?" he asked. "If you have something to say and you're a politician you can simply go talk to the media and get your message out."

Parker repeatedly questioned why council was approving specific actions just moments after agreeing to establish a roundtable session to gather ideas from others. He moved that council postpone any decisions until after the roundtable session but the motion was defeated.

"We said we were going to communicate with the public, engage them in it and I don't think we're doing that," he said.

Individual councillors have been talking about improving communication since the election and councillors Wes Brodhead, Roger Lemieux and Heron all spoke in favour of moving forward now.

"I think it's time to fish or cut bait," Brodhead said.

Heron said her ideas won't bring drastic change or substantial costs, nor would they rule out other ideas that come forward through consultation.

"They're just a starting point," she said. "They're all tools for the public to come and speak to us and for us to get what we need to say to the public out to them."

Lack of leadership

Former councillor James Burrows was in the public gallery specifically to observe council's decision-making. He wasn't impressed.

"You would think that the six of them would try to come together to come with a united policy position, especially to communicate with the public, yet they're fighting amongst themselves regarding how to communicate. I didn't think that showed a lot of leadership," Burrow said.

Mayor Nolan Crouse, who initiated the push for a communication overhaul, said he was pleased to see the issue advancing through a combination of short and long-term initiatives.

"Not everybody's going to agree with the individual tactics but when you add them all together over a period of time, it's going to be good progress," he said.