Mountain View County council has approved a communications strategic plan designed to help the municipality get information out to residents and to gather information back from those same residents.
The move came by way of motion at the recent regularly scheduled council meeting and followed an August review of a draft of the plan.
“This document serves as the overarching strategy to help guide administration in ensuring council’s communications priorities are known and used to drive activities,” said Chris Atchison, director of legislative services.
“Administration will develop a communications action plan built off the approved communications strategic plan that will outline the activities, tactics and priorities to achieve council’s priorities.”
The plan includes three communication goals and eight communication objectives.
The communication goals seek to strengthen current communications practices and improve service levels for the county’s key stakeholders in terms of messaging from the municipality and opportunities to engage with both council and administration, council heard.
Goal #1 calls for mutual expectation for communication to and from and with external stakeholders.
“Mountain View County council expects to present residents, ratepayers and other stakeholders timely, effective communications utilizing traditional methods of distribution and broadcast that facilitates feedback and conversation from the intended audience,” the goal states in part.
“Further, council and administration wish to receive feedback and input from residents, ratepayers and other key stakeholders on all issues with or without solicitation. The facilitation of this should include platforms and media where the audience are provided an opportunity to respond or provide feedback to the county administration and elected officials.”
The second goal involves positioning with government partners, and the third goal involves internal communications.
The communication objectives are designed to “achieve the broader goals with an underlying theme of ensuring two-way communication with the intended audience.”
They also include potential action items going forward.
Objective #1 is to increase public awareness of county business.
“The purpose of this objective is to proactively determine and satisfy stakeholder information expectations,” the objective states in part.
One of the potential action items under that objective was the “investigation of further social media opportunities that prioritize two-way communication.”
Objective #2 involves demographic outreach.
“Council and administration see as a priority the strengthening of engagement and reach within the current demographics where county messaging finds an audience, while also emphasizing opportunities to get information out to and engage residents who fall in the demographic under 30 years of age and also youth under 18 years of age,” the objective states in part.
Objective #6 involves community engagement.
“Part of sharing information from the municipality is how to accurately assess the effectiveness in those communications,” the objective states in part. “When the public shows an understanding of issues and municipal initiatives the tone of the feedback and the willingness to engage the county is enhanced.”
Potential action items include “utilizing the policy on a more consistent basis and generating reports based on campaigns” and “investigating successes and/or failures of peer municipalities to garner learning opportunities.”
Objective #3 involves enhanced communication channels and venues, objective #4 involves strengthening of the county brand, and objective #5 involves the “celebration of success," objective #7 involves strengthening of intergovernmental communications, and objective #8 involves internal communications.
The development of the action plan will now be developed and brought back to council.
“The action plan is already under development,” said Atchison.
Coun. Al Kemmere did not attend the Sept. 11 meeting when the motion was made.
