The newly-established city of Oneonta Communications Committee held its inaugural meeting Wednesday, Feb. 4 and discussed potential strategies to enhance communication between the city and its residents.
Committee Chairperson Don Mathisen, D-Eighth Ward, was absent, but committee members Elayne Mosher Campoli, D-First Ward, and Kaytee Lipari Shue, D-Fourth Ward, led the meeting.
Mosher Campoli said she would like to see city leadership provide information to the public in a way that helps it to stay ahead of misinformation.
“There’s a lot of assumptions and a lot of confusion about how local government works, and I would like us to be at the forefront of providing that information, accurate information, for people to have a better understanding of how the municipality works so that they can engage in ways that are meaningful,” Mosher Campoli.
She added that city communication during emergencies is essential.
Lipari Shue said it additionally is important to familiarize residents with the people behind the city. There seems to be a perception of the city as a “monolith,” she said, but “people come to work everyday and are doing their best.”
In a smaller city like Oneonta, Mosher Campoli said, where “we are all neighbors,” communication is the “key to transparency in government.”
A central element of that, Lipari Shue said, is figuring out efficient ways for residents to access necessary information. She said the city’s system for sharing information could be adjusted, possibly finding a way to identify the most sought after topics, like parking and garbage removal, and putting them at the forefront of the website.
“My neighborhood changes over twice a year,” Lipari Shue said. “Identifying what information is important to those folks who are coming in and then strategically sharing it when it is relevant is a big goal for me to be successful in my role and not anything that I’ve mastered yet.”
Mosher Campoli said effective communication involves sharing the same information multiple times on different platforms to maximize the number of people it reaches. Lipari Shue said it could be beneficial to take inventory of the city’s current means of communication, including whose responsibility it is to manage those platforms and how those platforms are utilized.
City Clerk Kerri Harrington, who manages a lot of city communication, said that Oneonta has about seven Facebook pages, including those for the police and fire departments. It utilizes local newspapers, radio, press releases and public service announcements, among others, for communication purposes.
“We can reach in a matter of seconds, depending on the day, we can reach over 20,000 people,” Harrington said.
Mosher Campoli said the committee needs to decipher where the “cracks” in communication are between the city and its constituents. Harrington said younger people look for information on social media rather than a website.
Earlier in the meeting, the committee spoke with Korey Rowe, the owner and creative director of Otsego Media, which the city hired for marketing purposes. Kicking off in last May, Rowe said the team has worked to change “the narrative that there’s nothing to do in Oneonta.” Rowe added that this year, Otsego Media could focus more on previewing events.
“We now have a library footage that we can pull from, and our focus is just going to be trying to make people aware of things before they happen,” Rowe said.
Rowe said Thursday that Otsego Media previously had a $20,000 contract with the city to provide these services for six months. The new contract, he said, would be for 12 months, with an additional $5,000 for city chambers audio improvements related to livestreaming meetings.
The marketing services proposal provided to the committee stated that Otsego Media would be available for any audiovisual needs including resolving issues in the chambers, like microphone problems, and offering technical support for meetings and recordings. Otsego Media is asking the city for $45,000.
City Administrator Greg Mattice said Thursday that the city requested proposals from interested vendors in last April and selected Otsego Media for marketing and promotional services.
He added that the Common Council could accept Otsego Media’s 2026 proposal for services, “by authorizing funding and waiving the City’s professional services procurement policy which would otherwise require a formal RFP or RFQ process,” as the total amount is more than $20,000.
