To: Honorable Mayor and Members of Town Council
From: Kristin Read, Assistant Town Manager
Title
Update: Planned Public Outreach Events/Public Noticing
Body
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Executive Summary
Staff has been gearing up to hold a series of public outreach events through fall, including a financial-focused telephone town hall; an open house on a potential third indoor recreation facility for the Town; the annual State of the Town event; and Councilmember open houses. The purpose of this memo is to outline these events and the planned public noticing for them for Council at a high level.
Discussion
Following are presently planned public outreach events:
Telephone town hall
Staff is working to contract with a third-party vendor to host the Town’s first telephone town hall. Douglas County frequently hosts these types of events and finds them a successful form of outreach.
Staff is planning this event for 6 to 7 p.m. Monday, June 13. The discussion is planned to focus on financial issues, including future public safety funding needs and 2023 Budget-related items.
Potential indoor recreation facility open house
Town plans outline the need for a third indoor recreation facility in the near term. Staff this year put out a request for proposals seeking potential partners to provide suitable property or other assistance for the Town to open such a facility and received one response.
The response proposes constructing a sports development center of roughly 100,000 square feet with aquatics, fitness and gym facilities as part of the Brickyard development that’s being proposed at the site of the former Acme Brick facility at 401 Prairie Hawk Drive.
Town staff views the proposal as viable and is planning an open house from 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 14, at the Millhouse at Philip S. Miller Park to share further details and invite public feedback.
State of the Town
Staff has been collaborating with Mayor Gray regarding this year’s State of the Town event, which is being planned for the evening of Tuesday, June 28. The current vision is for the event to be similar to last year’s iteration, which was held at The Amphitheater at Philip S. Miller Park. The entire community will be invited to attend.
Councilmember open houses
In 2021, staff collaborated with Councilmembers to host a series of open houses in Council districts throughout Town. These events were well-attended, with community members coming out to visit with their Council representatives and Town staff to discuss issues of interest.
Staff suggests building upon the success of 2021’s events with a series of Councilmember open houses in July through September 2022 and has identified dates - mostly on Tuesdays - on which these events are being planned:
• Districts 1/3 at Bison Park: Tuesday, July 12
• District 5 at Matney Park: Tuesday, July 26
• District 6 at Rhyolite Regional Park: Tuesday, Aug. 23
• District 2 Cobblestone Ranch Park: Tuesday, Sept. 13
• District 4 at Festival Park: Thursday, Sept. 29
Planned public noticing
Staff’s intention is to send a Townwide mailing at the beginning of June to invite the public to join the telephone town hall and to attend the recreation facility open house and State of the Town event. As was done last year, staff intends to send individual mailings to each Council district to invite participation in the Councilmember open houses.
Proposed Motion
“I move to direct staff to proceed as planned with scheduling and noticing public outreach events.”