During Monday night's council meeting (12/17/2018), City Council voted on a comprehensive listing of new position descriptions for city staff, connected to the new pay scale council approved back in March. The listings included a new position, "Communications Specialist". I voted in favor of the resolution to adopt the new position descriptions, and since I've heard some concerns from the public about this, I wanted to explain why I voted for it.
As you can read in the Communications Specialist position description, this role (which I understand will be full-time) will be partly public relations (marketing) and partly public affairs (citizen/media engagement). I spent several years as a Public Affairs branch chief on the national staff of the Coast Guard Auxiliary, and greatly appreciate the importance of having a specialist in your organization who understands the ins and outs of public engagement and media relations. It's not something that comes naturally; some staff may be great at their particular job...but connecting with the public & media is just not their forte. That's where a dedicated communications professional can help. With the continual, rapid evolution of mass media (social networks, streaming video, etc.), it's especially important to stay on top of communication -- especially when social media is expected to be a two-way street for dialogue, and timeliness matters.
As described at the Goal Setting Work Session in November, this position would work to enhance the city's transparency through more regular and directed engagement with the public, which I fully support. The position would take some of the 'response workload' off the mayor, administrator, and directors by drafting responses and directly responding when appropriate. That way, senior staff time and energy are directed more toward critical decision-making and management effort, and less on routine inquiry response (e-mails, letters, and phone calls). I also this person will be web-savvy in order to broadcast regular updates on projects, similar to what's been done with the University Avenue project at https://www.cedarfalls-universityaveproject.com/.
This position would also be responsible for outreach -- like groundbreakings and other ceremonial functions that involve the public. It's important that the city government carry out these kinds of functions, and to have a mechanism for telling the city's story...and also to provide expert advice when there's bad news to report or something isn't going well.
For all these reasons, I believe the Communications Specialist can be a positive addition to city staff, and I'll be watching the development of the position closely to see that the position is being employed as envisioned.