Title
Telephone Town Hall Meeting - Discussion Only
History
Purpose:
The Telephone Town Hall Meeting is designed to enable residents to share their opinions and engage with local government. Research shows that less than 20 percent of residents contact their elected officials and less than 25 percent of residents attend board meetings. To that end, the Village of Orland Park sees the Telephone Town Hall meeting as a way to further its commitment to civic engagement by bringing local government to the residents. We make the village more open and accountable by going directly to residents with a frank discussion on key issues, addressing in real-time their questions and minimizing misinformation that may be circulating regarding village operations.
Topics:
--An update on LaGrange Road construction and the village’s Road Improvement Program
--Brief look at how the village stands financially
--Brief facts on village safety (if crime & safety comes up)
Key Points:
The village will contract with Jaimey Sexton of The Sexton Group (TSG), to host an hour-long telephone town hall meeting. The meeting is set for Thursday, September 10, 7-8 p.m. The town hall meeting will be led by Mayor Dan McLaughlin with Trustee James Dodge, Village Manager Paul Grimes, Director John Ingram and Kurt Corrigan present to assist. The meeting will take place at the village, with the Office of Public Information manning the phones in the PIO office.
--TSG provides the telephone call list to land lines only; village retains for future meetings
--A potential pre-invite call several days before meeting weeds out any nonworking telephone numbers
--Roughly 20,000 residents are called simultaneously in minutes
--Residents receive a phone call with a pre-recorded message from the mayor moments before the meeting starts, inviting them to stay on the line
--For residents not home, a different pre-recorded message is left on answering machines, inviting residents to call back to join meeting
--Three attempts will be made to reach residents who do not pick up initially
--TSG provides the village with a call-in number to allow cell phone users to participate
--Residents with questions on the night’s topics can press star to be entered into a queue
--TSG suggests one screener for every 5,000 callers. PIO will have 4-5 screeners
--Callers with similar questions will be clustered together on TSG interface
--The mayor will take all questions live from each resident, similar to a call-in radio talk show
--TSG handles entering all callers with their contact info and question into the system
--Residents unable to get through due to time or residents with questions unrelated to the night’s topics stay on the line at the end of the meeting to leave a message
--TSG provides a multi-tab spreadsheet with all call stats, including average time residents stayed on the call, questions asked and audio of the town hall meeting and all voice mails
--PIO has budgeted for three telephone town hall meetings for FY15
--Publicity for the meeting will go out on social media, constant contact, a cable slide for TV-4, as well as a formal press release to local newspapers
--TSG provides a virtual dry-run mock call with PIO prior to event.
Costs:
Estimate for approximately 20,000 dials - $2,750
One-time call list to be used for all future calls - $500
In-bound, call-in number ($0.06/min) - Max $300
TOTAL: $3,550
Recommend Action/Motion
For discussion only