Richardson City Council is planning new ways to connect with residents and receive public input.
Council members discussed hosting quarterly town halls, making video recaps of meetings and streaming meetings on Facebook during their Oct. 12 meeting in order to increase public engagement.
The overview
City Manager Don Magner highlighted the existing opportunities for public engagement with council, including public comment at meetings, avenues to contact council members and community and neighborhood meetings.
Town halls would provide another opportunity for scheduled conversations with residents, Magner said, while video updates and Facebook streaming could offer new avenues for residents to understand council actions.
Council members agreed to host quarterly city-sponsored town hall meetings, one in each district. Mayor Amir Omar would moderate the meeting and field questions from attendees, with any or all council members having the option to attend.
A closer look
The town hall meetings would be a city-sponsored expansion of the quarterly town halls that Omar already hosts with residents. Council plans to hold the first town hall in January.
“The idea is that we just go out and we interact with residents and we answer questions,” council member Jennifer Justice said. “The purpose of the town hall is to figure out what issues are important to those people living in that area.”
Council members agreed that town halls should not be scheduled during election season.
Also of note
The city currently streams council meetings on its website, but council members plan to begin livestreaming the meetings on Facebook as well.
“It provides an additional way for increasing visibility of council meetings,” Magner said. “Residents will have another way to watch the meetings, including on mobile devices.”
Council also plans to begin producing monthly videos that would feature a council member explaining actions taken by council in recent meetings. These would be shared on city Facebook and Instagram accounts. Justice proposed modeling the video recaps on Richardson ISD’s videos that cover major updates from school board meetings.
“It’s monthly and it’s highly factual,” Justice said. “That’s just a new way to engage with people in a medium that we’re not as a council currently doing.”
