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Council workshop highlights need to modernize civic outreach, customer portals and data sources
Summary
City and council members discussed gaps in public outreach and data during a Jan. 31 workshop: public confusion over a stormwater fee rollout, limited reach of traditional media, and ways to improve digital communication including utility account logins and shared data dashboards.
City staff and councilmembers used the Jan. 31 workshop to probe why some recent policy changes — notably a stormwater fee rollout and a waiver of snow-removal fines — created public surprises and complaints, and explored steps to improve outreach.
Council members and staff agreed that multiple channels are necessary to reach different resident segments. Councilman Neil and others urged the city to expand beyond a single social-media channel and to adopt tools that post to multiple platforms at once; staff noted the idea of pushing messages through a utility-account login to reach ratepayers directly.
Several members suggested requiring or promoting a city utility-account login so that customers who pay water and electric bills would receive email and portal notifications about fees, outages and policy changes. "The second thing from my perspective is, creating our website so that everyone that pays utilities has to log in," a councilmember said, describing a utility-based outreach channel for notices and opt-in communications.
Staff and a representative who demonstrated state resources emphasized using better data sources for the city's economic and workforce work. The Department of Labor site and the Kent County dashboard (choosecentraldelaware.com) were cited as public data sources that can be linked to city outreach and economic-development marketing. City Manager Dave and staff emphasized improved data analysis and a centralized data source for the city—s needs.
Public-comment exchanges earlier in the workshop underscored the reputational cost of communication gaps. Council members directed staff to develop a short action plan to (1) expand multi-channel outreach, (2) create or promote utility-account logins for notice delivery, and (3) centralize data and dashboard access for internal planning and external marketing. No new ordinances were proposed at the workshop; council asked staff to return with implementation options and resource estimates.
