A good rhythm of awareness and trust between local governments and their citizenries—it’s ever the goal, achievable and rewarding, but the work to build it seems to require more varied and creative thinking all the time. And that may be especially true for cities and towns in a state with so much transformative growth while the rest of the developed world continues to invent new pop communications tools and methods of accessing important info. Studying what makes for a successful public engagement effort at the local government level these days is steady and evolving work for managers and communications officers, who must track how the world is changing and how audiences seem to prefer to absorb information, ideally with more pomp and circumstance than a standalone, dry press release or barebones posted notice. But even with the ability to set up social media accounts for sharing real-time city hall info, it’s hard for governments to keep the public regularly engaged, often requiring some clever extra production, a number of communications officers recently told Southern City. “We’re government—that in itself is tough,” said Dana Kaminske, the communications and marketing manager for the City of Hickory, when it comes to exciting audiences or establishing conversations. But Hickory is also one of many municipalities around the state seeing successes with tuned communications, having taken the time and effort to keep the two-way flow of information well-exercised, helping the public to develop a level of comfort and sense of norm with government communications. Those successes, in Hickory and many places elsewhere, are proving that a thoughtful comms apparatus can actually make a community better. “I do believe it builds trust when you go the extra mile,” said Kaminske in a recent interview that included focus on the new Hickory Trail, a 10-mile public path that neatly links popular or cool parts of town, a project that came out of a bond referendum the public approved in 2014 and fleshed out with money from other sources, like grants. “The public is very aware of all these projects and are always curious about what is happening with them,” Kaminske said, noting that the town’s creation of interactive maps and trail markers with QR codes for easy access to information has helped to keep the public accustomed to learning about what the city is working on, and, hopefully, more of a feeling of normalcy and welcome in participating. While there might still exist that classic public skepticism or suspicion among some residents when it comes to government activity, at any level, city-hall comms professionals including Kaminske are quick to reemphasize how operative a sense of welcome can be. The alternative isn’t great. Citizen Engagement with Local Government continues on page 26 BEN BROWN Communications & Multimedia Strategist ISABELLA MORMANDO Communications Associate NCLM.ORG 25
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