Bridging any communication issues a recent BOMA workshop topic
While not an agenda item, Farragut’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen discussed the best way to get information out to the public during a workshop session Thursday, June 25, prior to its regular bi-monthly meeting.
“I’m going to bring it up, since we have a letter we are going to be talking about in public forum. Mayor (Ron) Williams and I have been getting a lot of letters about sending out the (5G resolution, passed in May),” Vice Mayor Louise Povlin said. “I actually called one of the letter writers so I could understand where this was coming from, We signed it and sent it.
“It has been frustrating because I constantly feel I’m putting out fires and I’m (wondering) if there is a way to better handle this,” she added.
By comparison nationally, “I got an interesting text from (Farragut businessman) Knick Myers … whose brother lives on the West Coast, and they have a small town, too,” she continued, describing a category on that community’s website, “Rumor Has It.”
“They hear rumors that are going on, they write about it and address it, so that people have a place to go and actually get actual information,” she added. “And I thought that was a very interesting thing to do, and something to be considered.
“... I just wondered if you guys had any ideas on ways to be more proactive about this.”
As for local media, “The (farragut)press and the Shopper both do a good job about covering what we do, and I think both (reporters) do a good job of putting the articles out there about what’s going on,” Mayor Ron Williams said.
“There is no way to possibly address every single rumor or every single social media post that is out there,” Town administrator David Smoak said. “All we can do is do the best job we can, communicating facts about what we deal with on a daily basis and what we have in front of us and what the laws allow us to do in certain situations.
“I know Wendy (Smith) does a really good job in our PR department to get communications out. We are always trying to do better,” he added.
“Maybe we could try to address all of this — what we do — when we do an article for the press, and if Wendy could put on the website, or social media, could reference it — it could be a good education tool,” Williams said and Povlin agreed.
Later in the meeting, during Citizen’s Forum, the e-mail prompting the earlier discussion was read into the minutes, with Fox Den resident Ruth Ann Roberts requesting the 5G resolution passed in May be forwarded to Gov. Bill Lee.
Williams reiterated, “Just so everybody knows that is listening in, that been sent in — not just Gov. Lee, but to quite a few people, both federal and state legislators. That has been sent, but I guess the word has not got out to everyone.”
Povlin noted it was sent to “Gov. Lee, (Speaker of the House) Cameron Sexton, Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, state Rep. Jason Zachary (R-District 14 including Farragut), state Rep. Justin Lafferty (R-District 89 including Hardin Valley), state Sen. Dr. Richard Briggs (R-District 7 including Farragut), state Sen. Becky Massey (R-District 6), U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-2nd District), U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn and Lamar Alexander and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.”
Public comments sought
Williams encouraged Town citizens, or anyone else interested, to send in comments
via e-mail to address agenda items, or anything in Citizen’s Forum, to comments@townoffarragut.org/.
