Foster City communications manager outlines outreach strategy, shows coyote-safety video

Austin Walsh, the city's communications manager, told the Foster City Parks & Recreation Committee that his small communications team functions as the city's public engagement and media liaison, coordinating outreach, press releases, newsletters and event promotion across departments. "We are the clearing house for public information," Walsh said, describing how the team builds outreach strategies with department staff and tailors campaigns to meet specific goals.

Walsh showed a two-minute example video used to address community concerns about coyotes. The video included a recorded message from Maren Smith, a unit wildlife biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife: "Coyotes have a natural fear of humans and will typically avoid interacting with you," Smith says, and the video advises residents to keep dogs close, make loud noises to haze coyotes, and never feed wildlife.

Walsh emphasized video production as a growing tool for outreach and listed the division's outputs: two resident newsletters (a general city newsletter and a monthly community-center update), social media channels, in-house graphics, press releases, and an expanding video program. He said translation requirements are increasing: "There is state law that goes into effect this year" that will require more translation of videos for larger jurisdictions, and the team expects to use AI tools to lower barriers while noting the limits of automated translations.

On digital access, Walsh said the city is working on a website redesign so videos, newsletters and social feeds are more centralized and easier for residents to find. He also described measurement practices for outreach: tracking engagement and shifting resources away from approaches that underperform while using mailing lists (including a civics-academy alumni list) to boost recruitment for advisory bodies.

Committee members asked how the communications team measures success and whether the city conducts resident surveys. Walsh said department-led surveys are the norm but the communications team will collaborate and help amplify department efforts; he recommended commissions funnel requests through staff so initiatives align with city objectives. On social media, Walsh said the city monitors comments but takes a conservative approach to public threads to avoid repetitive back-and-forth and uses public replies for transactional questions while routing other feedback to staff.

Walsh closed by encouraging committee members to share ideas and to send feedback to awalsh@fostercity.org; he also invited commissioners to use the civics-academy mailing list as a recruitment and outreach channel. The committee did not take formal action on the presentation; staff said materials and an updated communication plan will be available as the website redesign and video initiatives roll out.