NORWELL — Town officials are exploring a series of changes aimed at improving communication with residents, including weekly video updates, expanded website alerts, social media outreach and new technology tools designed to make local government more accessible.
During the June 10 meeting, members discussed a draft communications strategy that has been developing through recent conversations about town governance and public engagement. Vice Chair Lorenda Layne presented an early framework for what could become a broader townwide communication plan. The proposal focuses on improving how residents receive information, learn about town business and engage with local government.
“What I put in there is not set,” Layne said. “My thought was trying to create categories of communication modules that could be kind of tackled by an individual or a small group of individuals and kind of stand on their own, but also have things that have a little bit of a flow.”
Among the ideas discussed were weekly video updates summarizing town business, expanded use of social media, greater participation in NSTV programming, improved website notifications and enhanced public information resources.
Layne pointed to communication efforts in neighboring communities as examples worth studying, particularly weekly update videos that provide residents with a concise summary of local government activity.
Board members expressed support for creating a regular video update that could be recorded immediately following meetings and shared through the town's communication channels.
“I think the idea of at the end of our meeting, if we have something back there where we go sit down and record the update of what happened in this meeting,” board member Peter Smellie said. “It's getting done that meeting and then that Friday it can go out and be ready.”
The discussion also included ways to make government information easier to access online. Layne referenced examples from other municipalities that use public dashboards to track strategic goals, projects and progress throughout the year.
Earlier in the meeting, a resident told the board she had not received notifications related to a recent water issue and often learned important information through neighboring communities instead of official town channels. She also raised concerns about the availability of meeting information and the town's use of technology.
“I don't feel that this town feels responsible to send out information to people,” the resident said. “Even if people may be flooded, it's easy to delete an email. It's not easy to get the information.”
The communication discussion followed another action taken earlier in the meeting, when the Select Board voted to re-establish the town's Technology Committee. Officials said the committee could play an important role in evaluating communication tools, website functionality and technology-related improvements.
Town Administrator Darleen Sullivan said the town has already trained staff members to maintain website updates and noted that some communication improvements may be achievable through existing systems.
“I think we've got resources at our fingertips not being tapped into yet, but they're available,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan also suggested that improving communication may depend as much on coordination between departments as on new technology.
“So it's more like if police and fire, if we just have one mechanism to say we're posting this out there or even the water, then it should be a signal to whomever receives that communication, we're going to put it in ours too,” Sullivan said. “So it's just one process and it's easy.”
The board did not vote on the communication plan itself, but members agreed to continue refining the proposal, recruit volunteers for the newly re-formed Technology Committee and explore which communication initiatives could be implemented first.
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