AGENDA #4o
MEMORANDUM
TO: Mayor and Town Council
FROM: W. Calvin Horton, Town Manager
SUBJECT: Ordinance Allocating Funds for Additional Staffing to Carry Out Town Communications Plan
DATE: November 21, 2005
Enactment of the following ordinance would allocate $10,000 from the Council’s contingency fund for the cost of additional staffing from January to June 2006 to carry out the Town Communications Plan. We recommend the hiring of a 16-hour per week staff member.
The part-time staff member will assist with organizing announcements for TOWNweek newspaper advertisements, compiling materials for the employee newsletter TOWNtalk, posting calendar notices on the web and Cable Channel 18 community billboard, and gathering information for the Town Residents Guide to Services.
In 2004, the Town Council authorized the position of Town Information Officer to meet its goal of establishing a Town Communications Program that effectively communicates with citizens.
With input from the Council Committee on Communications, we developed a Town Communications Plan that was adopted in 2004-05, and this has been updated for 2005-06. See Agenda Item #5f.
In 2004-05, the Town developed new communication vehicles (news releases, newsletter, cable community bulletin board, news listservs, web pages, brochures, advertisements) to transmit information to citizens. In 2005-06, the Council Committee on Communications desires to undertake additional resources for developing detailed news features to be published in a variety of media communications vehicles. These news features would be comprehensive stories that explain to citizens the policies and goals behind Council actions. This effort is expected to put Chapel Hill policy into a national and regional perspective.
Additional staffing would be necessary to achieve the goals of the updated Communications Plan. We recommend authorization of a part-time communications specialist to assist the Town Information Officer in producing the work necessary to meet the objectives of the Communications Plan. The cost of the position is estimated to be about $10,000 for the remainder of the fiscal year.
RECOMMENDATIONS
We recommend that the Council adopt the attached budget ordinance to allocate $10,000 for additional staffing to carry out the Town Communications Plan.