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Red Bank to leave Small Cities Coalition; city will contract communications and pursue direct legislative outreach
Summary
City manager announced Red Bank's withdrawal from the Small Cities Coalition, citing host-city staffing churn and shared-employee concerns; the city will develop its own communications contract and pursue a legislative liaison role tailored to Red Bank.
Red Bank's city manager told the commission the city will withdraw from the Small Cities Coalition and move to a separate, locally managed approach to communications and legislative outreach.
"After a great deal of consideration, I made the decision to withdraw Red Bank from the Small Cities Coalition," Mr. Granholm said in a prepared statement to the commission, adding the move is intended to reposition Red Bank's approach to communications and legislative engagement while maintaining good relations with neighboring cities.
Staff cited several drivers for the decision: turnover among host-city managers and questions about how a shared employee (the coalition's communications specialist) was managed. City staff said they plan to develop a separate contract for communications services and said the city also intends to pursue its own legislative-liaison outreach to state legislators, the county commissioner and the school board.
The item was placed on the work-session agenda to provide transparency; staff emphasized this step is intended to preserve relationships with nearby cities while giving Red Bank more direct control over messaging and legislative priorities.
Next steps: staff will draft a communications contract and return to the commission with recommended procurement or contracting steps; the withdrawal and any contractual decisions will appear on the commission's public agenda for formal action.
