The Mayor
The leaves are falling, the air is cooler, and Fall is officially here! I always love this time of year, especially all the fun family activities we have here in Douglasville! You might have seen posts on the city’s social media pages recently about upcoming fall events. All this information is pushed out by our wonderful Community Relations Department, who I want to highlight this month! The Community Relations Department does a lot that citizens will recognize. Managing the city’s social media pages, updating the city website with current news and information, managing the Douglasville local access station CITI TV (Comcast Channel 22), and coordinating city events like our annual Christmas and July 4th parades, the Wednesday Wind Down and Community Rocks concert series, community block parties, and more. However, they also do a lot of things to support our city that most people never think about.
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ROCHELLE ROBINSON
Faith Based Community Meeting, The Mayor’s Supper Club series, and Community Town Hall Meetings are just a few of our efforts to ensure that citizens are not only aware of what is happening in our community but also actively involved in the process.
Branding and marketing for the entire city is coordinated through our Community Relations team. This includes everything from consolidating branding under our new logo, making official documents easy to identify as city materials, and making sure our new city signage, forms, and applications all have a professional and consistent look.
Clearly, our Community Relations team provides a lot of different services to our residents. However, during the past year and the unique challenges we have faced, we have seen the true value of what this department provides. Throughout the pandemic, the city has been able to provide a consistent stream of information and updates to our citizens thanks to the array of communications outlets established by the Community Relations Department, especially through a COVID-19 information center created on the city website www. douglasvilleGA .gov. The information center includes updates on pandemic related information and provides citizens with information on resources available from local organizations and statewide agencies.
Additional communications outlets such as weekly email newsletters, quarterly print newsletters, regular email updates from Parks and Recreation and Public Services, and more are also created by our Community Relations team. They are dedicated to ensuring that we have many points of contact with our community creating opportunities for great 2-way communication with our citizens.
During the initial wave of COVID when we had to go virtual with our City Council meetings, this department worked with our Information Technology team to create a process for those meetings. As we evolved into a hybrid format, they continued to invent new processes to ensure citizens not only had the option to watch our virtual meetings but a way to actively engage.
Community Outreach is another area that falls under this department. Programs like our
As city events were canceled in the wake of the pandemic, the Community Relations De-
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partment got innovative and found new ways to connect with the community. Douglasville LIVE trivia nights hosted on our city Facebook page, Parking Lot Bingo, virtual scavenger hunts, the July Fourth Shoebox Parade, The Honk-o-Ween drive-thru trick or treat event, and the Parks and Recreation Mobile Playground are just a few of the innovative activities the Community Relations Department helped execute during the pandemic keeping our citizens connected, active, and safe. While the value of our Community Relations Department was highlighted during the pandemic, they have been considered one of the most recognized government communications teams in the State of Georgia for many years now. 2021 marked the twelfth year that the Douglasville Community Relations team has been invited to support the Georgia Municipal Association (GMA) at their annual convention in Savannah, GA. They help to provide AV and communication support during the event, they produce a live show from the exhibit hall floor, and they produce the kick-off video for the general open session of the event. Their work helps to highlight the importance of the training and education opportunities that GMA provides local municipalities while also spotlighting Douglasville on a state-wide level. I hope that you enjoyed getting to know our Community Relations Department through this article. They work so hard to bring fun, creativity, and information to our community. I can’t wait to see what they think of next! PLEASE SUPPORT OUR ADVERTISERS