Neighborhoods Face Communications Task

‘Getting the word out” is one of the toughest jobs facing Spokane’s neighborhood councils.

With little money, mass mailings aren’t an option. So neighborhood councils, a new approach to communicating between city residents and City Hall, are looking for creative ways to let residents know about meetings, issues and events.

The city’s Office of Neighborhood Services has a $15,000 annual budget to help the 16 neighborhood councils with printing and distributing fliers a couple times a year.

Next week, during a meeting with City Council, the Assembly of Neighborhood Councils plans to discuss ways of consolidating budgets for neighborhood services, COPS and Blockwatch and, it is hoped, finding a little more money for communications.

In the meantime, neighborhoods are pretty much on their own.

Janet Davis, with the neighborhood services office, said the city will announce regular and special meetings on the city’s cable Channel 5. She recommends contacting television stations for on-air announcements. Radio stations have public service announcements and will air times and dates of meetings.

Davis also suggests neighborhoods develop a telephone tree, with each member of the telephone committee calling a list of neighbors with information about meetings.

“It’s one way to contact people they know are interested and have come to meetings in the past,” Davis said.

Northwest Neighborhoods, with 8,700 homes to contact and no money in the bank, is planning to ask Blockwatch captains to distribute fliers to residents in their area. Other neighborhoods take fliers to the local elementary school to be carried home along with other student information.

Davis also suggests enlarging fliers to poster size, laminating them and posting them at grocery stores. Other neighborhoods ask permission to leave fliers at coffee shops, churches, libraries and other community gathering spots.

Some community development neighborhoods set aside part of their funding for neighborhood newsletters.

If mass mailings are really a goal, some neighborhoods partner with businesses to cut costs. They announce meetings on one side of the flier and print neighborhood business cards or promotions on the other and share the cost.

Neighborhoods can post their meetings free on TINCAN, a citywide neighborhood news site on the Internet. The address is www.tincan.org.

The city lists neighborhood meetings on its Internet page: www.spokanecity.org/ neighborhoods.

For some neighborhoods, simply scheduling a regular monthly meeting, same day, same time, same place, works best. But Davis said nothing works like a personal invitation. Invite your neighbor to a meeting and offer them a ride.

“Word of mouth is still the best way,” said Davis.

SHARE MEETING TIMES Beginning this week, the North Voice will run a list of regular weekly meetings and special meetings of neighborhood councils as space allows. If you have an upcoming meeting for a South Side neighborhood, please let us know. Deadline is Monday. Write: Mike Prager, Neighborhood Meetings, South Side Voice, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210. E-mail: mikep@spokesman.com. Call: 459-5454. Fax: 459-5482.