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Republican Mayoral candidate and Allen County Council President Paula Hughes has sent a letter regarding social media to Mayor Henry.
Below you will find a letter Paula Hughes, President-Allen County Council, sent to Mayor Henry regarding an offer to help with the city’s social media strategy. The county implemented its strategy in January of 2009 at no additional cost to the taxpayer.
Dear Mayor Henry,
I applaud your newfound intention to reach the citizens of Fort Wayne through the use of social media. This response to criticism about the lack of openness in your administration is well timed. Openness and interaction with citizens is essential to good governance. As officials of local government, we in Allen County have found the use of multiple social media outlets to be very helpful in delivering our message to the citizens, many of whom we share with you. What I find astounding is the fact that you did not consider reaching out to your neighbor, Allen County, to find out how it’s done. Spending tens of thousands of Fort Wayne tax dollars to hire an out of state firm to do something that multiple local companies can do is irresponsible.
In fact, Allen County has had an active social media presence for several years. We established formal Facebook and Twitter accounts in January 2009 and have been making video on demand episodes of our Commissioners and County Council sessions as well as job postings available on YouTube since May 2008. The County Treasurer, Recorder, Assessor, Coliseum and Election Board all have twitter accounts to facilitate interactive communication with the community. Additionally, the Commissioners send out messages for the Highway Department, Parks Department, and Planning Department on a regular basis using social media platforms. The Allen County Solid Waste District, Airport Authority and Economic Development Alliance all use social media to share their messages, and have for quite some time.
We would be happy to share our experience, expertise and knowledge in this area with you, and to help you craft your own strategy. We are interested in being good government neighbors with you – consider this our offer of the loan of a cup of sugar. We are interested in local government being cooperative and interactive. It’s time that we realize that we are all in this together – City and County – and that our citizens don’t care which of us does what. They just want to know what’s going on and that their resources are being used wisely.
Give us a call; send us a message, type out a tweet. We’ll be here and we would love to help you get up to speed on what the County has been doing all along – for free.
Sincerely,
Paula Hughes, President
Allen County Council
Visit the official Paula Hughes campaign website
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