HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016 06-29 Reaching out to residents MAPLEWOOD REVIEW6/29/2016 Reaching out to residents I Lillie Suburban Newspapers - LI IIIeNews.com
Reaching out to residents
Submitted by admin on Wed, 06/29/2016 - 12:OOam
By: Aundrea Kinney
Council members get full report on Maplewood's progress after breaking away
from cable commission
In 2015, the Maplewood City Council members and staff decided to update how they communicate with their residents. As part of this
effort, Maplewood withdrew from the RamseyM/ashington Suburban Cable Commission, which it had been a part of for almost two
decades. Oakdale, Lake Elmo and North St. Paul are still members of the RWSCC.
Now, after several months, city council members checked in with staff on the transition. Atthe June 13 city council workshop, Mychal
Fowlds, Maplewood's information technology director, provided an update.
Before the end of 2015, the city website, URL and logo were all redesigned and the city increased its social media presence. Already
this year, Maplewood finalized its agreementwith CenturyLink and began receiving Comcast payments for public, educational and
government access (PEG) channels and franchise fees. City staff began drafting a communications plan and budget, as well asjob
descriptions for new staff positions.
"I thinkwe've come a long way [since]we've been working on this," said Melinda Coleman, Maplewood city manager.
Cable channels
Last October, when Maplewood withdrew from the RamseyM/ashington Suburban Cable Commission, there were many unknowns
including what the city was going to do with the existing cable channels.
At the time, Coleman said, "We're just now going to begin those conversations about what programming will be done by us.... The
only thing we know for sure is we'll continue to do all the government programming."
According to Fowlds, the city is currently broadcasting content from the local schools on Channel 15 and government content
generated from city meetings on Channel 16. The city has 10 channels it could be filling with content, but it is focusing on providing
programs on Channel 16.
"We wanted to have one channel with good quality content versus several channels with sporadic content," Fowlds said.
Budget
In the update, Fowlds included a rough yearly budget for Maplewood's new communications department.
"This is our first crack at it. There are some known expenses and some unknown expenses," he explained.
The overall estimated expenses of the communications department fell just under $480,000, with about 70 percent of that going
toward full-time staff positions that Maplewood has never previously had, including a communications manager, communications
coordinator and communications specialist.
Contractual services are responsible for 20 percent of the total expenses, which includes videographers, streaming services, video
production, website services, social media management software and maintenance for software and hardware.
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Commodities are responsible forthe remaining 10 percent ofthe expenses, and that includes the cost of purchasing items like
equipment and set furniture.
However, the budget forthe communications department does not only include expenses; it also includes revenues.
"This budget is using new revenues —revenues that we've never received before as a city," Fowlds said.
New revenues include around $111,000 in franchise fees and about $390,000 in PEG fees. New sources of revenue collectively
equal about $500,000, which leave the department budget with an extra $22,000.
Looking forward
In the second half of 2016, Maplewood staff plan to start purchasing equipment, have next year's budget approved by the city council
and finalize the communications plan. They also plan to internally increase the content for the cable channels by creating new
programs or recreating old ones such as "Spotlight on Maplewood" and "Your Police Report."
According to city council member Marylee Abrams, who is the communications liaison, city staff are also considering eliminating some
of the unused cable channels the next time they negotiate with Comcast and CenturyLink. For now, the city is under contract and
unable to make changes.
"We certainly don't need all the channels available to us. It's clearly excessive," Abrams said.
In a phone interview, Chad Bergo, Maplewood geographic information systems analyst, explained that 10 channels are blocked off for
each city by the RWSCC, and each city can choose content for them. Although Maplewood is no longer part ofthe RWSCC, it is part of
the franchise agreements with Comcast and CenturyLink, and those channels are blocked off for Maplewood just like they are set
aside for the RWSCC member cities.
"Because we stepped into the same position as the cable commission, we have all those channels," Abrams explained.
In 2017, Maplewood staff plan to have all of the new communications employees hired and have the staff of all departments be trained on the
trained on the communications plan.
"This is very new to us; we've never done anything like this before," Abrams said about Maplewood's nascent communications efforts.
"The goal that I want to see is that we do this right."
Aundrea Kinney can be reached at 651-748-7822 or akinne yMillienews.com.
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