Public Engagement Plan for 2024
Last year on December 29th, I shared a post about my engagement plan for 2023. In that post I outlined how I hoped to engage you throughout the year. Here is what I planned to do in 2023:
- A virtual Community Conversation every month of 2023 except for August.
- Door-knocking at least twice a month from February-October (not including September due to the numerous community events happening each week as part of Community League Day). This will also include more frequent door-knocking during our summer recess from July 16th-August 13th.
- Continuing to attend community league AGMs, events, etc.
- Putting out monthly e-newsletters to share information about what is happening in the city.
- Continuing to regular share updates on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and any other forms of social media that people are regularly using.
- Continuing to visit seniors residences in the ward twice a year.
- Ongoing responses to calls/emails/social media comments.
Looking back on the list above, I was able to do almost every listed with a few exceptions. Updates to TikTok stopped as all City devices were required to remove TikTok. I might start using a personal device to start posting on TikTok as I know there is an audience there that might not use other social media platforms.
The other item I didn’t do as expected was that a few seniors residences in the ward did not respond to my schedule request for November but I understand they were in the middle of staffing changes so that might be why I couldn’t get a second visit in to certain locations. I already have time in my calendar scheduled for an early 2024 visit.
At the same time, I did more than planned monthly virtual Community Conversations as we also did some issue specific Community Conversations to cover some of the most important issues we were discussing in 2023.
I also introduced community-specific Community Conversations alongside my quarterly Community Conversations. While the quarterly events were previously poorly attended, this year saw a massive shift. The community-specific ones were hit and miss but even though some weren’t successful, I will be carrying this into 2024. I will be working to schedule the community-specific ones even earlier so they can be advertised in multiple monthly newsletters.
Similar to my post from last year, 2023 was by far and away the busiest year I have had for correspondence. One thing former Councillor Ben Henderson told me was that the longer you are on council, the more people will contact you as they get to know who you are. He was absolutely right and I am seeing that every day.
I appreciate hearing from so many people but in a ward of approximately 80,000, I want to make sure I’m doing everything possible to hear from as many different people.
Since the amount of correspondence is increasing every year, I am finding that it can be more challenging to respond to an email or call as quickly as I used to. In the past, I would generally try to respond to everyone within 2 days but the last 2 years I have been more inconsistent with responses sometimes taking as long as a week.
Contrary to the image attached below, I think most Edmontonians expect that I respond when they contact me. That image was from an email thread with someone suggesting that replying to emails was not me doing my work. I know that’s not the standard but I thought I would share it so that you better understand the different perspectives that exist.
A screenshot of an email thread. It shows an initial email sent at 10:37, a reply by me at 17:08, and another person responding with “Get back to work!!!!!” at 18:42.
Specific to emails, I’d like your insight. I have two amazing people I work with in the ward Nakota Isga office: Rajah and Kristin. The way I have handled emails for the last 10 years is I will respond first and then depending on the issue, Rajah or Kristin may take over the issue as they work to get answers from City staff.
As I don’t expect volume of emails/calls to go down, I think I need to set a realistic expectation that an initial response could take up to 7 days. The alternative is to let them take the lead on email correspondence and then I only reply as needed (ex: those looking for my comments on a policy discussion).
I’m very uneasy about that idea but I thought I should at least get your feedback. My feeling is that even if it takes longer, people want to hear from their councillor. What is your feeling on this?
I’d also like your feedback on the plan for 2024. Is there anything missing from the list above (which will also include community-specific Community Conversations) that you would like to see? Are there items on this list that you might like to see changes? Please let me know your feedback so I can try to create an engagement plan that reaches as many different people as possible. Thanks everyone and have a Happy New Year!
