COUNTY OF SAN MATEO

Inter-Departmental Correspondence

County Manager’s Office

DATE:

January 30, 2008

BOARD MEETING DATE:

February 5, 2008

SPECIAL NOTICE/HEARING:

None

VOTE REQUIRED:

Majority

TO:

Honorable Board of Supervisors

FROM:

John L. Maltbie, County Manager

Mary McMillan, Deputy County Manager

SUBJECT:

Status Report on County Internal and External Communications

RECOMMENDATION:

Accept this status report on County internal and external communications

VISION ALIGNMENT:

Commitment: Realize the potential of our diverse population

Goal(s): Civic engagement – including voting, public service, charitable giving, volunteerism and participation in public discussions of important issues – is uniformly high among the diverse population.

BACKGROUND:

Five of the 79 recommendations in the County Organizational Review approved in April 2006 focused on ways to improve internal and external communications. Separate task forces were formed to identify and make recommendations. Three areas were identified: (1) enhance, but simplify access to information on the Web; (2) develop, adopt and implement a communication policy and process to ensure crisp and consistent messaging and a consistent look and feel to County information; and (3) grow organizational capacity to ensure timely flow of information and encourage departmental collaboration.

DISCUSSION:

The following is a summary of the activities that have been accomplished over the past twelve months to implement the communication priorities and develop a more comprehensive county communications program:

§ A County Communications Manager was hired to serve as the program coordinator;

§ Created of an online listing of departments with photos of department heads, contact information, including email address;

§ SMCDirectory established to ensure ease in finding current employee information;

§ Same-day summaries of Board actions after most meetings sent via e-mail to the media, County department and division heads, legislative delegation and a growing list of homeowners associations, stakeholder groups and other local agencies;

§ Monthly Executive Council meeting summaries sent via email to department heads for distribution to employees;

§ Established a County Communications Committee to develop a countywide policy to ensure all communications are consistent in form and appearance (Draft policy due 7/1/08);

§ Conduct training to improve department media relations, strengthen writing and presentation skills;

§ Monthly County TV show developed for PenTV;

§ Online and published the 16-page County informational “profile;”

§ Electronic library of County photos was created; and

§ Compilation of email lists of city council members, school board members, community-based groups, homeowners associations, chambers of commerce, business groups, faith-based, cultural and others to reach directly people who live and work in the County with news and County information.

Key projects underway:

§ In collaboration with ISD, in March 2008, a new County web page will be rolled-out that along with its new look, feel and features, it will have a user friendly “A-Z Directory of Services,” a 24-7 constituent management online system to facilitate resident requests and a community calendar;

§ New Web presence are being developed for all Boards and Commissions and a competition will be conducted to develop a new Youth Commission home page;

§ Boards and Commissions Handbook developed;

§ Purchase four interactive kiosks, deployed in various County facilities to assist visitors seeking services in multiple languages; and

§ Branding Project RFQ is being prepared.

FISCAL IMPACT:

Funding for the communications program was included in the FY 2007-08 Budget.