Written by: Amy Mejias
The City of Collegedale’s municipal government has launched a new social media campaign focused on transparency. The first Facebook post using the hashtag #Transparency was posted Feb. 6 and included a video of the previous night’s commission meeting.
Three days later, the city began consistently using the hashtag #TransparentGovernment on several posts, including its weekly wrap-up and commission meeting minutes posts. The city’s Instagram page, @cityofcollegedale, has fewer posts than its Facebook page, and none appear to mention transparency or transparent government.
According to Jamie Heath, assistant chief of police for the Collegedale Police Department (CPD), the city’s move toward more transparency started when Jack Sapp was appointed CPD chief of police three years ago.
“His administration immediately began sharing more, getting the agency’s information out as efficiently as possible across multiple platforms,” he stated in an email to the Accent. “Continued news releases were a top priority. From daily reports to quarterly and annual reports, Chief Sapp’s leadership of transparency has set an intentional standard of community partnership that everyone has come to expect.
“The police department’s successful adoption of transparent policing across social and mainstream media platforms paved the way for the city’s recent #TransparentGovernment hashtag,” Heath added.
An undated letter on the website from the police chief states, “Our agency has committed itself to being a transparent member of the community we serve. Our officers are dedicated to working with our citizens to create strong community ties, because we do not want an ‘Us vs. Them’ environment between our agency and the public. We are all in this together and the first steps toward building trust has to start right here!”
Heath explained that “Under the leadership of City Manager Wayon Hines, the City of Collegedale has maintained open doors and communication. The success of the police department’s own transparency campaign showed that there was a real need to take the message directly to the people, instead of waiting for the people to come and get it.”
Hines said social media has been the push for the Collegedale city government to be more transparent, an initiative that began about three years ago.
“We decided that giving the citizens full information and trying to keep them informed would be the best way to build trust and increase engagement,” he said. “We work for the citizens and need to know what items they appreciate and what initiatives they would like to see within their community.”
Hines added, “Three years ago we did not have a social media presence and did not participate in many interviews. Since then we have written [social media] policies and started a direct effort through assigning communication efforts to several staff members. Additionally, we post quarterly and annual [police department] statistics, monthly building permits, agendas, the budget, etc.”
Collegedale resident Courtney Shaw, who has lived in Collegedale since 2006, thinks more transparency is a great thing.
“Until recently it’s been a real challenge to find out what events have been going on,” Shaw said. “I really appreciate the efforts of [Collegedale Commissioner] Tonya Sadler, the other commissioners, the city departments, and the police department [to post] regularly on social media.”
She added, “I really appreciate Ms. Sadler’s commitment to transparency, as it was one of her campaign goals (and why I voted for her), and I think she’s done an excellent job of doing so throughout her service as commissioner.”
Sadler said she does not really consider the Collegedale government transparent.
“Currently, I wouldn’t call our practices transparent; instead, I’d call them translucent,” Sadler said. “Case in point, the weekly letter to the commissioners that city management is posting on social media is usually a condensed or edited version of what is emailed to us. Whether the content is edited for legal purposes or the self-preservation of the author isn’t a question to which I’m privy to the answer.
“To say that our city government is transparent is a fallacy,” she continued. “A transparent government is a government that conducts business without secrets. And to say that our city’s business is conducted without secrets is not accurate. There have always been secrets, and there will continue to be secrets.”
Sadler said sometimes secrecy is beneficial or even vital. “One example is in negotiating to recruit new commercial enterprises,” she explained. “For example, if our city manager were to broadcast that a hotel approached us to develop on Little Debbie Parkway, that hotel franchise may get spooked and never return.”
Sadler said the best Collegedale officials could strive for is to be an open government that’s responsive to its citizens, including creating the ability for citizens to exercise their right to review the city’s records if they should make that request.
According to Heath, “The police department is very proud to share the #TransparentGovernment message with the City of Collegedale. It’s another example where we have set another standard to maintain the trust of the people we serve.”
