Morgan Hill Comms. Assessment-v3

government, due (in part) to the ability of residents to interact directly with elected leaders

and City staff during everyday life.

Building and consistently executing a Communications plan helps cities foster an engaged

community. By leveraging established communications platforms and creating new ones,

cities can inform residents of upcoming initiatives, alert citizens to community meetings, and

organize the community in response to emergencies. To see the most benefit from their

communication efforts, cities must build trust through regular communications and proactive

efforts. Times of crisis are not the best time to begin a dialogue with the community.

Reactionary communications on controversial community issues can appear artificial and

desperate.

Morgan Hill

is a relatively small, residential community with busy residents who are especially

concerned with how transportation and residential growth are impacting Morgan Hill and it’s

‘small-town feel.’ The City places great emphasis on keeping its community up-to-date on City

business, construction and other projects, namely through emails and website updates. This

report documents the City’s current processes, identifies successes, and suggests future goals

for the City’s communication efforts.

Engagement Approach Summary

To evaluate the City’s current Communications strategy and processes, Tripepi Smith met with

City Council Members, leadership from departments within the City, outside agencies who

serve the community, and community influencers who either create or consume City

communications. These interviews allowed Tripepi Smith to assess existing communications

from both internal and external viewpoints. For a full list of assessment participants

Having completed the interview process outlined above, Tripepi Smith set about documenting

existing Communications processes and platforms, identifying opportunities for improvement,

and surfacing best practices that the City could most effectively integrate into existing

processes. Consideration was given to organizational culture and fiscal viability.

A Changing Communications Landscape

The decline of the local newspaper across America and concurrent rise of the Internet has

diversified sources for local news. The situation is made more complex by the continued

consolidation of newspapers across the state and the rise of a highly saturated market in

remaining outlets. During the course of the interview process, City staff noted that regional

media coverage from publications such as The Mercury News is lacking and tends to focus on

negative news versus promoting positive City services and programs. The City’s two local

newspapers (Morgan Hill Life and Morgan Hill Times), by comparison, focus more on local

news that relates to the City government and would be important to residents.

Residents have significantly evolved the tools they use to gather information. For large

numbers of residents, this is through the Internet and delivered on traditional computers or

mobile devices. The information may come from social media, online newspaper sites,