SPC members question increasing City communications staff
By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on October 1, 2022.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com
A request by the City of Lethbridge Communications and Engagement department manager for more funding will be addressed by city council during budget deliberations.
The request was made by Tara Grindle to the Governance Standing Policy Committee of city council at its meeting Thursday.
The SPC passed a motion recommending that city council direct administration to prepare a Community Engagement Program budget initiative containing four options presented to it for inclusion in the 2023-26 operating budget deliberations.
The funding request was met with questions and concerns from members of the SPC about staffing levels in the communications and engagement department, the work they do and the effectiveness of that work.
The City department has 10 employees; an 11th person as a communications strategist for city council.
The request by Grindle calls for city council to direct administration to prepare an operating budget initiative based on one preferred option of four submitted for a community engagement program.
The four options – or tiers, said the presentation, “look at enhancing the ways in which we connect with residents, the frequency in which we connect and how that information is coordinated and successfully used in decision making,” said the submission.
The report says without a community engagement program, the city’s community engagement strategy can’t move ahead. Lessening community engagement, says the report, “poses the risk of eroding community participation and passion while diminishing residents’ trust with local government.”
The preferred tier would require having two additional staff trained in IAP2, which Grindle said after a question from councillor John Middleton-Hope refers to the International Association of Public Participation. Tier 3 also includes a 0.5 full-time employee, a community check-up phone survey, one additional small community conversation, $5,000 paid advertising, community event participation and an engagement resource kit.
While telling Grindle he feels her department does a good job, councillor Ryan Parker called the request “alarming” adding he has concerns about the growth of staff in her department. He wondered if some of their work could be outsourced. He told Grindle council has to justify it when it adds full-time employees.
Parker told her “you could have all the billboards lit up in this city, you could have all the ads put in the paper and you could do everything you can but unless it affects that person, they really don’t care.”
He said the city somewhat does overkill because it tries its best so “at the end of the day, I as a representative of the community who communicates with the community, I have to justify when we add full-time employees because when you add full-time employees, you don’t take them away.”
He said the request to increase the size of Communication and Engagement by another 30 per cent over the next budget cycle is concerning when other departments have been told to live with less and do more, with that being achieved through some cost and sacrifice.
Parker said he’d prefer to see outsourcing as has been done in the past.
He asked Grindle if her department could do its job with current staffing levels.
Without the extra staff, Grindle replied “no, I don’t think so.” She said between May and June staff put in 191 hours of overtime. “There’s a lot of after-hours stuff for our team.”
In the Gateway to Opportunity action plan, an engagement strategy was adopted, Grindle told the SPC which also includes chair Belinda Crowson and vice-chair Jeff Carlson.
The options being presented were to help achieve the strategy, Grindle said.
Grindle said her department presently works at basically the Tier 2 level.
Middleton-Hope asked if things like community checkups could be outsourced to a consultant firm or college or university. Grindle responded by saying the City has used IPSOS in the past but different options could be considered.
Middleton-Hope, a former city police chief, questioned if the Lethbridge Police Service communications staff could be utilized for City communications work since many releases come from the desk of the duty staff sergeant.
He said synergies could be developed between the LPS communications staff and the City’s staff and efficiencies explored.
“As part of a larger collective within the corporation, could they be more utilized for a variety of different things that may work in tandem with some of the areas that you’re working on?” he asked Grindle.
He said in terms of marketing the activities of the City, “I think we do an adequate job and I think we’re moving toward a good job. But I think quite candidly, one of the areas that is most effective in this city is the Lethbridge Herald. I see the stories that exist that we participate in on the Lethbridge Herald. That’s where I see it” or on CTV and Global “and we need to see more of that from our own communications that has a broader audience than just internal.”
Crowson asked how the request would benefit the community.
Grindle said the municipal government relies on spreading the word to the community “organically,” working with media to get information out.
“Being able to to put some advertising dollars, whether its online advertising or even doing stuff in our newspapers, newsletters, stuff like that will help get the word out more to people. So that to me is a big one. The beauty of having communications and engagement together is we all know what’s happening, we can see the other opportunities, Grindle said.
When asked by Crowson if this would get more people to SPC meetings, Grindle responded “regardless of whether we do this or not, we can definitely sit down and strategize what that looks like because maybe that’s just a communication funding but I feel like probably not.”
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Is this department the one that forms the questions on the surveys?
If they are they should be defunded, not increased in funds! The recent survey on the Sober Shelter had questions that gave the impression the sober shelter in the civic center curling rink was a done deal. Set to ask more of since it was gong there, what would be acceptable.
This was not the only survey that has been worded to reflect a certain outcome in the questions, while not allowing the citizens to express exactly by asking the question, do you accept this sober shelter in the old curling rink.
While taking stats in university we learned that surveys can be skewed to lean on your wanted or expected responses but asking only questions that would present the outcome.
I believe there is a lot of chaff that has continued to make decisions that are not in the cities best interests that need to be retired!
They have given our city up to the homeless, the addicts and the indigenous. They have sold our city out and destroyed it’s reputation internataionally and there needs to be a house cleaning in the administration.
Mike Fox appears to change his statements on issues regarding the homeless and encampments for example. Our bylaw regulations office seems to be afraid to face the encampment issues head on and many in city hall state, ” every other city has these issues ” , when we had a just to stop it dead in it’s tracks, but everyone dragged their feet and allowed the homeless and addicts to take away another piece of downtown.
Galt Gardens, the bus terminal downtown, the library, the back alleys downtown, the civic center track, other areas in the downtown, all given up with no end in site.
The sober shelter will never go away, once opened and as we have seen here and in other cities, will only increase in size.
We need leadership with the guts to take this on and stop selling out our city. The protests are coming, we are tired of having millions of our property tax dollars spent on these deviants!
I called for needle pick up on Friday for a syringe which was loaded 3/4’s full of blood, more than likely with HIV/Hep C as is common with the addicts and 6 hours later it was still there near the entrance of the BMO bank downtown and no one answering the phone, answering by recording stating their hours are Monday to Friday – 8am to 4pm. It didn’t state holidays, but since it wasn’t picked up one can assume there were 3 days of no needle pickup.
The communications department and several other departments needed to get rid of the chaff and refresh the teams with people that put the citizens, the taxpayers first!